Deeplinkshttps://www.eff.org/pt-br/rss/updates.xml/dmca
EFF's Deeplinks Blog: Noteworthy news from around the internetpt-brInternet Users Spoke Up To Keep Safe Harbors Safehttps://www.eff.org/pt-br/deeplinks/2018/02/internet-users-spoke-keep-safe-harbors-safe
<div class="field field--name-body field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden"><div class="field__items"><div class="field__item even"><p>Today, we delivered a <a href="https://www.eff.org/document/petition-us-copyright-office-dmca-512-safe-harbors">petition</a> to the U.S. Copyright Office to keep copyright’s safe harbors safe. We asked the Copyright Office to remove a bureaucratic requirement that could cause websites and Internet services to lose protection under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). And we asked them to help keep Congress from replacing the DMCA safe harbor with a mandatory filtering law. Internet users from all over the U.S. and beyond added their voices to our petition.</p>
<p>Under current law, the owners of websites and online services can be protected from monetary liability when their users are accused of infringing copyright through the DMCA “safe harbors.” In order to take advantage of these safe harbors, owners must meet many requirements, including participating in the notorious <a href="https://www.eff.org/issues/dmca">notice-and-takedown procedure</a> for allegedly infringing content. They also must register an agent—someone who can respond to takedown requests—with the Copyright Office.</p>
<p>The DMCA is far from perfect, but provisions like the safe harbor allow websites and other intermediaries that host third-party material to thrive and grow without the constant threat of massive copyright penalties. Without safe harbors, small Internet businesses could face bankruptcy over the infringing activities of just a few users.</p>
<p>Now, a lot of those small sites risk losing their safe harbor protections. That’s because of the Copyright Office’s rules for registering agents. Those registrations used to be valid as long as the information was accurate. Under the Copyright Office’s new rules, website owners must <a href="https://dmca.copyright.gov/osp/login.html">renew</a> their registrations every three years or risk losing safe harbor protections. That means that websites can risk expensive lawsuits for nothing more than forgetting to file a form. As we’ve written before, because the safe harbor already requires websites to submit and post accurate contact information for infringement complaints, <a href="https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2016/11/copyright-office-sets-trap-unwary-website-owners">there’s no good reason for agent registrations to expire</a>. We’re also afraid that it will disproportionately affect small businesses, nonprofits, and hobbyists, who are least able to have a cadre of lawyers at the ready to meet bureaucratic requirements.</p>
<p>Many website owners have signed up under the Copyright Office’s new <a href="https://www.copyright.gov/dmca-directory/">agent registration system</a>, which is designed to send reminder emails when the three-year registrations are set to expire. While the new registration system is a vast improvement over the old paper filing system, the expiration requirement is unnecessary and dangerous.</p>
<p>We explained these problems in our <a href="https://www.eff.org/document/petition-us-copyright-office-dmca-512-safe-harbors">petition</a>, and we also explained how the DMCA faces even greater threats. If certain major media and entertainment companies get their way, it will become much more difficult for websites of any size to earn their safe harbor status. That’s because those companies’ lobbyists are pushing for <a href="https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2017/06/copyright-law-shouldnt-pick-winners">a system where platforms would be required to use computerized filters</a> to check user-uploaded material for potential copyright infringement.</p>
<p>Requiring filters as a condition of safe harbor protections would make it much more <a href="https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2016/01/notice-and-stay-down-really-filter-everything">difficult</a> for smaller web platforms to get off the ground. Automated filtering technology is expensive—and not very good. Even when big companies use them, they’re <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/youtube-flags-cat-purring-as-copyright-infringing-music-150211/">extremely error-prone</a>, causing lots of lawful speech to be blocked or removed. A filtering mandate would threaten smaller websites’ ability to host user content at all, cementing the dominance of today’s Internet giants.</p>
<p>If you run a website or online service that stores material posted by users, make sure that you comply with the DMCA’s requirements. Register a DMCA agent through <a href="https://dmca.copyright.gov/osp/login.html">the Copyright Office’s online system</a>, post the same information on your website, and keep it up to date. Meanwhile, we’ll keep telling the Copyright Office, and Congress, to keep the safe harbors safe.</p>
</div></div></div>Tue, 13 Feb 2018 02:04:17 +000098110 at https://www.eff.orgAnnouncementDMCAMitch StoltzBMG v. Cox: ISPs Can Make Their Own Repeat-Infringer Policies, But the Fourth Circuit Wants A Higher "Body Count"https://www.eff.org/pt-br/deeplinks/2018/02/bmg-v-cox-isps-can-make-their-own-repeat-infringer-policies-fourth-circuit-wants
<div class="field field--name-body field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden"><div class="field__items"><div class="field__item even"><p>Last week’s <em>BMG v. Cox </em><a href="https://www.eff.org/document/bmg-v-cox-fourth-circuit-opinion" title="BMG v. Cox Fourth Circuit Opinion">decision</a> has gotten a <a href="https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20180201/15205039136/appeals-court-makes-mess-copyright-law-concerning-isps-safe-harbors.shtml">lot</a> of attention for its confusing take on secondary infringement liability, but commentators have been too quick to dismiss the implications for the DMCA safe harbor. Internet service providers are still not copyright police, but the decision will inevitably encourage ISPs to act on dubious infringement complaints, and even to kick more people off of the Internet based on unverified accusations.</p>
<p>This long-running case involves a scheme by copyright troll <a href="https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2015/04/call-canada-fix-rightsholder-abuse-its-copyright-notice-system">Rightscorp</a> to <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/rightscorp-revenue-from-piracy-settlements-down-48-in-2017-171125/">turn a profit</a> for shareholders by demanding money from users whose computer IP addresses were associated with copyright infringement. Turning away from the tactic of filing lawsuits against individual ISP subscribers, Rightscorp began sending infringement notices to ISPs, coupled with demands for payment, and insisting that ISPs forward those notices to their customers. In other words, Rightscorp and its clients, including BMG, sought to enlist ISPs to help coerce payments from Internet users, threatening the ISPs themselves with an infringement suit if they don’t join in. Cox, a midsize cable operator and ISP, pushed back and was punished for it.</p>
<p>Before the suit, Cox had quite reasonably decided to stick up for its customers by refusing to forward Rightscorp’s money demands. Going along would have put Cox’s imprimatur on Rightscorp’s vaguely worded threats. The Digital Millennium Copyright Act safe harbors, which protect ISPs and other Internet services from copyright liability, don’t require ISPs who simply transmit data to respond to infringement notices, much less forward them.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, Cox failed to comply with another of the DMCA’s requirements. To receive protection, an ISP must “reasonably implement” a policy for terminating “subscribers and account holders” who are “repeat infringers” in “appropriate circumstances.” Past decisions haven’t defined what “appropriate circumstances” are, but they do make clear that a repeat infringer policy has to be more than mere lip service. Cox’s defense foundered—as many do—on a series of unfortunate emails. As shown in court, Cox employees discussed receiving many infringement notices for the same subscriber, and giving repeated warnings to those subscribers, but never actually terminating them, or terminating them only to reconnect them immediately. The emails painted a picture of a company only pretending to observe the repeat-infringer requirement, while maintaining a real policy of never terminating subscribers. The reason, said the Cox employees to one another, was to eke out a bit more revenue.</p>
<p>Despite the emails, BMG’s case had a weakness: the notices from Rightscorp and others were mere <em>accusations</em> of infringement, their accuracy and veracity far from certain. Nothing in the DMCA requires an ISP to kick customers off the Internet based on mere accusations. What’s more, the “appropriate circumstances” for terminating someone’s entire Internet connection are few and far between, given the Internet’s still-growing importance in daily life. As the Supreme Court <a href="https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2017/06/supreme-court-strikes-down-social-media-ban-sex-offenders">wrote</a> last year, “Cyberspace . . . in general” and “social media in particular” are “the most important places (in a spatial sense) for the exchange of views.” Even more than a website or social network, an ISP can and should save termination for the most egregious violations, backed by substantial evidence.</p>
<p>The Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit <a href="https://www.eff.org/document/bmg-v-cox-fourth-circuit-opinion">acknowledged this</a>, to a point. The court was “mindful of the need to afford ISPs flexibility in crafting repeat infringer policies, and of the difficulty of determining when it is ‘appropriate’ to terminate a person’s access to the Internet.” The court ruled that Cox had lost its safe harbor, not because its termination policy was too lenient, but because it failed to implement its own policy. “Indeed,” wrote the court, “in carrying out its thirteen-strike process, Cox very clearly determined not to terminate subscribers who in fact repeatedly violated the policy.”</p>
<p>The court also ruled that “repeat infringer” isn’t limited to those who are found liable by a court. But the court stopped short of holding that mere accusations should lead to terminations. The court pointed to “instances in which Cox failed to terminate subscribers whom Cox employees regarded as repeat infringers” after conversations with those subscribers, implying that they, at least, should have been terminated.</p>
<p>The court should have stopped there. Unfortunately, it also pointed to the number of actual suspensions Cox engaged in—less than one per month, compared to thousands of warnings and temporary suspensions—as a factor in denying Cox the safe harbor. That focus on “body counts” ignores the reality that terminating home Internet service is akin to <a href="https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/06/france-removes-internet-cut-off-threat-from-its-anti-piracy-law/">“cutting off someone's water." </a>And the court didn’t acknowledge that Cox’s decision to stop accepting Rightscorp’s notices—which included demands for money—protected Cox customers from an exploitative <a href="https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20150818/17282532001/court-lets-malibu-media-move-forward-with-discovery-copyright-case-blocks-speculative-invoicing.shtml">“speculative invoicing”</a> business.</p>
<p>So where does this decision leave ISPs? Certainly, they should not repeat Cox’s mistake by making it clear that their termination policy is an illusion. But nothing in the decision forbids an ISP from standing up for its customers by demanding strong and accurate evidence of infringement, and reserving termination for the most egregious cases—even if that makes actual terminations extremely rare.</p>
<p>The case isn’t over; losing the DMCA safe harbor doesn’t mean that Cox is liable for copyright infringement by its customers. BMG still needs to show that Cox is liable under the contributory, vicarious, or inducement theories that apply to all service providers. The Fourth Circuit ruled that the jury got the wrong instructions, and that contributory liability requires more than a finding that Cox “should have known” about customers’ infringement. Because of that faulty instruction, the appeals court sent the case back for a new trial. The court’s ruling on inducement liability was <a href="https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20180201/15205039136/appeals-court-makes-mess-copyright-law-concerning-isps-safe-harbors.shtml">confusing</a>, as it seemed to conflate “intent” with “knowledge.” It’s important that the courts treat secondary liability doctrines thoughtfully and clearly, as they have a profound effect on how Internet services are designed and what users can do on them. That’s why, while we expect to see more suits like this, we hope that ISPs will continue to stand up for their users as Cox has in defending this one.</p>
</div></div></div>Mon, 05 Feb 2018 21:09:22 +000098013 at https://www.eff.orgDMCAFile SharingCopyright TrollsMitch StoltzCopyright, The First Wave of Internet Censorshiphttps://www.eff.org/pt-br/deeplinks/2018/01/copyright-first-wave-internet-censorship
<div class="field field--name-body field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden"><div class="field__items"><div class="field__item even"><p><i>We're taking part in </i><a href="https://www.eff.org/copyrightweek"><i>Copyright Week</i></a><i>, a series of actions and discussions supporting key principles that should guide copyright policy. Every day this week, various groups are taking on different elements of copyright law and policy, and addressing what's at stake, and what we need to do to make sure that copyright promotes creativity and innovation.</i></p>
<p>When someone wants to remove speech from the Internet, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act’s (DMCA) notice and takedown process can provide the quickest path. This has made copyright law a tempting tool for unscrupulous censors. As content companies push for even more control over what gets posted online, it’s important to remember that any tool used to police copyright will quickly be abused, then adapted, to censor speech more widely.</p>
<p>We’ve seen abusive DMCA takedown notices from a <a href="https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20170929/17100738318/former-revenge-porn-site-operator-readies-senate-run-issuing-bogus-takedown-requests-to-youtube.shtml">would-be Senate candidate</a>, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/may/23/copyright-law-internet-mumsnet">small businesses</a>, and <a href="https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2014/05/state-censorship-copyright-spanish-firm-abuses-DMCA">Ecuador’s President</a>. We’ve also seen robots-run-amok and sending takedowns and monetization demands for <a href="https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/12/facebook-sends-ars-takedown-notice-from-pink-floyd-over-nasa-audio/">public domain material</a> and <a href="https://gizmodo.com/man-s-youtube-video-of-white-noise-hit-with-five-copyri-1821804093">white noise</a>. One <a href="https://lumendatabase.org/blog_entries/798">disturbing trend</a> involves businesses targeting bad reviews. The business, or a shadowy reputation management company acting on its behalf, copies the bad review and “publishes” it elsewhere on the Internet. The business then sends a DMCA takedown notice alleging infringement of the copied, and falsely backdated, review.</p>
<p>Other DMCA takedowns have targeted speech for its political or otherwise offensive content. Although we did not agree with the video’s message, EFF <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2017/12/16/16785190/youtube-took-down-fcc-chairman-ajit-pai-mad-decent-harlem-shake">criticized</a> a takedown directed at a video that briefly featured FCC chairman Ajit Pai doing the Harlem Shake. We had similar concerns about a game company that used the DMCA to <a href="https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/8xxwyg/pewdiepie-is-inexcusable-but-dmca-takedowns-are-not-the-way-to-fight-him">take down a game stream</a> after a certain YouTube “personality” uttered a racial slur. It is not copyright’s job to police speech.</p>
<p>Copyright as a censorship tool is not limited to the DMCA. For example, when Zillow <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2017/6/27/15880934/zillow-mcmansion-hell-copyright-kate-wagner">first threatened</a> architecture blog <a href="http://mcmansionhell.com/">McMansion Hell</a>, it claimed that the blog’s use of real estate photographs wasn’t fair use under copyright law. But the blog’s use of the photos – annotating them with humorous and critical commentary about McMansions – was a clear fair use (Zillow also didn’t own the photos). <a href="https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2017/06/mcmansion-hell-responds-zillows-unfounded-legal-claims">EFF responded</a> on behalf of McMansion Hell and the blog remained.</p>
<p>Content owners continue to push for more powerful tools—like <a href="https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2017/10/end-game-european-upload-filtering-approaches">upload filtering</a> or <a href="https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2017/07/how-threats-against-domain-names-used-censor-content">suspension of domain names</a>—for removing online speech. While these tools are <a href="https://edri.org/did-the-eu-commission-hide-a-study/">unlikely to help</a> creators (and will entrench the position of platforms like YouTube that have already spent the money to build filtering mechanisms), they will be useful instruments for censors. The systems are designed to create a quick and easy way to make speech disappear from the Internet without any clear standards or meaningful recourse. When <a href="https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2017/04/chinese-snooping-foreshadows-future-copyright-enforcement">governments move to censor speech</a>, the tools they use will likely have begun life as copyright filters. It is our job to keep those filters from being deployed in the first place.</p>
</div></div></div>Thu, 18 Jan 2018 15:12:41 +000097870 at https://www.eff.orgCommentaryDMCADaniel NazerDRM Puts the Brakes on Innovationhttps://www.eff.org/pt-br/deeplinks/2018/01/drm-puts-brakes-innovation
<div class="field field--name-body field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden"><div class="field__items"><div class="field__item even"><p><i>We're taking part in </i><a href="https://www.eff.org/copyrightweek"><i>Copyright Week</i></a><i>, a series of actions and discussions supporting key principles that should guide copyright policy. Every day this week, various groups are taking on different elements of copyright law and policy, and addressing what's at stake, and what we need to do to make sure that copyright promotes creativity and innovation.</i></p>
<p>Copyright law is slow. Whenever you hear about a case of alleged copyright infringement and you think, “What was illegal about this?” consider that the law probably came many, many years before anyone conceived of the activity it’s being used to target. Then it starts to make a little bit more sense.</p>
<p>Look at how U.S. copyright law treats DRM, the annoying array of methods that digital content providers use to restrict their customers’ behavior. Passed in 1998, Section 1201 of the <a href="https://www.eff.org/issues/dmca">Digital Millennium Copyright Act</a> made it illegal to bypass DRM or give others the means of doing so. When Congress passed Section 1201, it was mostly thinking of restrictions intended to stop users from making infringing copies of music and movies. The DMCA passed well before manufacturers began putting digital locks on cars, microwaves, toilets, and every other electronic product. We’re now living in a world where it might be a crime to modify the software on your rice cooker. If that sounds absurd, that’s because it is.</p>
<p>You can almost forgive Congress for this mess—it didn’t know that DRM would soon crawl into every aspect of your life. On the other hand, Congress helped bring the infestation on. The DMCA encouraged manufacturers to build DRM into their products, because doing so gave them ammunition to fight people using their products in ways they didn’t approve of. Can’t compete with unauthorized repair shops? Make them illegal.</p>
<p>Every three years, the public can ask the Copyright Office for exceptions to some of the DMCA’s prohibitions on bypassing DRM. <a href="https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2015/10/victory-users-librarian-congress-renews-and-expands-protections-fair-uses">We earned some very important exceptions</a> last time around, including the right to circumvent DRM for the purposes of security research and auto repair.</p>
<p>But the exemption process is so onerous and limited that it does not effectively protect speech and innovation. That’s why <a href="https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2016/07/research-and-remixes-law-wont-allow">we have brought a lawsuit explaining why it and the underlying regime of Section 1201 violate the First Amendment</a>. Not to mention that the whole ordeal of the rulemaking is exasperating. Why are we asking the government for permission to bypass DRM? Why is it illegal in the first place?</p>
<p>If your child’s toy is <a href="http://money.cnn.com/2017/02/27/technology/cloudpets-data-leak-voices-photos/index.html">recording their voice and sending it to the manufacturer</a>, you should be able to find out. You should be able to remove that feature or connect it to a service of your choice, one that you trust. If your car needs repairs, <a href="https://www.wired.com/2015/01/let-us-hack-our-cars/">you should be able to do those repairs</a> or take it to a mechanic of your choice without copyright law getting in the way.</p>
<p>Innovation thrives where people have broad leeway to experiment and explore. The public’s right to sell and rent videos created competition among video stores. Blockbuster dominated the market until Netflix disrupted the business model with its switch to mail-order rentals. That kind of evolution-through-competition doesn’t happen when people and businesses aren’t allowed to tinker.</p>
<p>That’s a shame. New innovations come from edge cases, the “aha” moments that happen when someone first tries to use a product in a way in which the manufacturer hadn’t imagined. When entrenched players can make it illegal to modify their products and devices, then those players can slow innovation to a crawl.</p>
</div></div></div>Wed, 17 Jan 2018 00:13:16 +000097857 at https://www.eff.orgCommentaryCreativity & InnovationDRMDMCADMCA RulemakingElliot HarmonEFF Asks Copyright Office to Improve Exemptions to the Digital Millennium Copyright Acthttps://www.eff.org/pt-br/press/releases/eff-asks-copyright-office-improve-exemptions-digital-millennium-copyright-act
<div class="field field--name-body field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden"><div class="field__items"><div class="field__item even"><p class="s2"><span>Washington, D.C.—The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) asked the<span class="apple-converted-space"> Librarian of Congress </span>today<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>to<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>limit the<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>legal barriers people face when they want to repair and modify<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>software-enabled products,<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>so that they—not manufacturers—<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>control the appliances, computers,<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>toys,<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>vehicles, and other products<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>they own.</span></p>
<p class="s2"><span class="apple-converted-space">In comments<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>filed in Washington D.C. today<span class="apple-converted-space">, </span>EFF continued<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>its<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>years-long fight to enable<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>owners<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>and creators<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>to <a href="https://www.eff.org/issues/right-to-repair" target="_blank">repair</a>, modify, and enhance products, or use snippets of films or songs,<span class="apple-converted-space"> free of onerous threats that doing so somehow infringes companies' copyrights. Software-enabled devices and Internet-connected products and appliances are ubiquitous in modern life, and people aren't infringing anyone's copyright when, for example, they choose to permanently disable the embedded, on-all-the-time camera or microphone in their kids' toys, or send their car to their favorite mechanic, rather than high-priced dealerships, to be repaired.<br /></span></span></p>
<p class="s2"><span>“It’s<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>absurd<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>that<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>a<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>law intended to protect copyrighted works is misused instead to prevent people from taking apart or modifying the things they own, inhibit scientists and researches from investigating safety features or security enhancements, and block artists and educators from using snippets of film in noncommercial ways," said EFF Legal Director Corynne McSherry. "The exemption process is one highly flawed way of alleviating that burden."<br /></span></p>
<p class="s2"></p>
<p class="s2"><span>“We<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>rely on the devices in our lives to learn and communicate, to keep us safe and get things done,” said EFF Staff Attorney Kit Walsh. “These<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>devices should work for us and embody<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>our preferences, not the<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>commercial desires<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>of<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>their<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>manufacturers.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>We, the users of these devices, should be able to decide how they affect our lives and how we can improve and adapt them. That’s how we<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>ensure that technology enhances our freedoms rather than undermining them.”</span></p>
<p class="s2"><span>This year<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>EFF petitioned the<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>Librarian<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>to exempt from Section 1201 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (<a href="https://www.eff.org/issues/dmca" target="_blank">DMCA</a>) all modifications<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>and repairs<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>of<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>software-enabled<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>devices that don’t infringe copyrights.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>It’s also seeking exemptions that will<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>allow people to tinker with<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>smart speakers<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>and<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>digital home assistants such as<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>Amazon Echo and Google Home. EFF is also seeking one clear, easier-to-use<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>exemption for<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>video excerpts that would allow educators, libraries, documentary filmmakers, remix artists, and others to use video snippets without fear of legal repercussions by copyright owners.<span class="apple-converted-space"> The Librarian implements the exemption recommendations of the Copyright Office.<br /></span></span></p>
<p class="s2"><span>“Our approach is simple: we are seeking to expand the types of activities that should be exempt from Section 1201<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>of the DMCA to encompass<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>repairs, modifications, enhancements, and innovations that don’t infringe copyright,” said EFF Senior Staff Attorney Mitch Stoltz. “We shouldn’t have to seek exemptions for things copyright law already allows. Instead, there should be a general rule<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>that allows people to circumvent digital locks to do any non-infringing activity.”</span></p>
<p class="s2"><span>For EFF’s comments:<br /><a href="https://www.eff.org/document/eff-1201-exemption-comments-2017-computer-program-repairs" target="_blank">https://www.eff.org/document/eff-1201-exemption-comments-2017-computer-program-repairs<br /></a><a href="https://www.eff.org/document/eff-1201-exemption-comments-2017-jailbreaking-0" target="_blank">https://www.eff.org/document/eff-1201-exemption-comments-2017-jailbreaking-0<br /></a></span><a href="https://www.eff.org/document/eff-1201-exemption-comments-2017-video-0" target="_blank"><span>https://www.eff.org/document/eff-1201-exemption-comments-2017-video-0<br /></span></a><a href="https://www.eff.org/document/huang-1201-exemption-comments-2017" target="_blank"><span>https://www.eff.org/document/huang-1201-exemption-comments-2017<br /></span></a><a href="https://www.eff.org/document/green-1201-exemption-comments-2017" target="_blank"><span>https://www.eff.org/document/green-1201-exemption-comments-2017</span></a></p>
<p class="s2"></p>
<p class="s2"><span>For more on the Section 1201 exemption process:<br /><a href="https://www.eff.org/cases/2018-dmca-rulemaking" target="_blank">https://www.eff.org/cases/2018-dmca-rulemaking</a><br /></span></p>
<p class="s2"></p>
<p class="s2"><span>For more on the unintended consequences of Section 1201 of the DMCA:<br /><a href="https://www.eff.org/issues/dmca" target="_blank">https://www.eff.org/issues/dmca<br />
https://www.eff.org/issues/dmca-rulemaking<br /></a><br /></span></p>
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<div class="field field--name-field-profile-first-name field--type-text field--label-hidden"><div class="field__items"><div class="field__item even">Corynne</div></div></div><div class="field field--name-field-profile-last-name field--type-text field--label-hidden"><div class="field__items"><div class="field__item even">McSherry</div></div></div><div class="field field--name-field-profile-title field--type-text field--label-hidden"><div class="field__items"><div class="field__item even">Legal Director</div></div></div><div class="field field--name-field-profile-email field--type-email field--label-hidden"><div class="field__items"><div class="field__item even"><a href="mailto:corynne@eff.org">corynne@eff.org</a></div></div></div> </div>
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<div class="field field--name-field-profile-first-name field--type-text field--label-hidden"><div class="field__items"><div class="field__item even">Kit</div></div></div><div class="field field--name-field-profile-last-name field--type-text field--label-hidden"><div class="field__items"><div class="field__item even">Walsh</div></div></div><div class="field field--name-field-profile-title field--type-text field--label-hidden"><div class="field__items"><div class="field__item even">Staff Attorney</div></div></div><div class="field field--name-field-profile-email field--type-email field--label-hidden"><div class="field__items"><div class="field__item even"><a href="mailto:kit@eff.org">kit@eff.org</a></div></div></div> </div>
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<div class="field field--name-field-profile-first-name field--type-text field--label-hidden"><div class="field__items"><div class="field__item even">Mitch</div></div></div><div class="field field--name-field-profile-last-name field--type-text field--label-hidden"><div class="field__items"><div class="field__item even">Stoltz</div></div></div><div class="field field--name-field-profile-title field--type-text field--label-hidden"><div class="field__items"><div class="field__item even">Senior Staff Attorney</div></div></div><div class="field field--name-field-profile-email field--type-email field--label-hidden"><div class="field__items"><div class="field__item even"><a href="mailto:mitch@eff.org">mitch@eff.org</a></div></div></div> </div>
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</div></div></div>Mon, 18 Dec 2017 22:57:57 +000097619 at https://www.eff.orgKaren GulloTell the Copyright Office: Keep Safe Harbors Safehttps://www.eff.org/pt-br/deeplinks/2017/12/tell-copyright-office-keep-safe-harbors-safe
<div class="field field--name-body field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden"><div class="field__items"><div class="field__item even"><p>The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) safe harbors are a vital protection for websites and Internet services of all sizes. But thanks to a new Copyright Office rule, website owners could lose safe harbor protections if they don’t register online by December 31. And that’s not all: Hollywood lobbyists are pushing the Copyright Office to create even more hoops for website owners to jump through in order to keep their safe harbor.</p>
<p>Under current law, the owners of websites and online services are protected from monetary liability when their users are accused of infringing copyright. Owners must meet many requirements in order to be eligible for that protection, including participating in the notorious <a href="https://www.eff.org/issues/dmca">notice-and-takedown procedure</a> for allegedly infringing content. They also must register an agent with the Copyright Office, someone who can respond to takedown requests.</p>
<p>The DMCA is far from perfect, but it does allow websites and other intermediaries that host third-party material to thrive and grow without constant threat of litigation. Without safe harbors, small Internet businesses could face bankruptcy over the infringing activities of just a few of their users.</p>
<p>Now, a lot of those small sites risk losing their safe harbor protections. That’s because the Copyright Office recently made new rules for registering agents. Under the new system, the Office has decided that website owners must <a href="https://dmca.copyright.gov/osp/login.html">renew</a> their registrations every three years or risk losing safe harbor protections. As we’ve written before, <a href="https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2016/11/copyright-office-sets-trap-unwary-website-owners">there’s simply no good reason for agent registrations to expire</a>. We’re also afraid that it will disproportionately affect small businesses, nonprofits, and hobbyists, who don’t have the same staff resources as big Internet companies.</p>
<p>That’s just the beginning. If certain big media and entertainment companies get their way, it will become much more difficult for websites of any size to earn their safe harbor status. That’s because those companies’ lobbyists are pushing for <a href="https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2017/06/copyright-law-shouldnt-pick-winners">a system where platforms would be required to use computerized filters</a> to check uploads for potential copyright infringement.</p>
<p>Requiring filters as a condition of safe harbor protections would make it much more <a href="https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2016/01/notice-and-stay-down-really-filter-everything">difficult</a> for smaller web platforms to get off the ground. Automated filtering technology is expensive—and not very good. Even when big companies use them, they’re <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/youtube-flags-cat-purring-as-copyright-infringing-music-150211/">extremely error-prone</a>, causing lots of lawful speech to be blocked or removed.</p>
<p>Besides, no computer can understand the human context that goes into determining whether a given use of a copyrighted work is a fair use. Requiring websites to monitor uploads more restrictively would result in <a href="https://www.eff.org/sh/deeplinks/2016/01/notice-and-stay-down-really-filter-everything">legitimate uses of copyrighted works being pushed off the Internet</a>.</p>
<p>If you run a website or app that stores material posted by users, then don’t wait. Register (or re-register) a DMCA agent through <a href="https://dmca.copyright.gov/osp/login.html">the Copyright Office’s online system</a> today. Then, whether you own a website or not, <a href="https://act.eff.org/action/keep-safe-harbors-safe">sign our letter to the Copyright Office</a> telling them why the safe harbors are vital protection for Internet users, and asking them not to impose new obstacles.</p>
<p class="take-action"><a href="https://act.eff.org/action/keep-safe-harbors-safe">Take action</a></p>
<p class="take-explainer"><a href="https://act.eff.org/action/keep-safe-harbors-safe">Tell the Copyright Office: Keep safe harbors safe!</a></p>
</div></div></div>Sat, 09 Dec 2017 00:27:48 +000097572 at https://www.eff.orgCall To ActionCreativity & InnovationDMCAFair UseElliot HarmonWhat if You Had to Worry About a Lawsuit Every Time You Linked to an Image Online?https://www.eff.org/pt-br/deeplinks/2017/10/what-if-you-had-worry-about-lawsuit-every-time-you-linked-image-online
<div class="field field--name-body field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden"><div class="field__items"><div class="field__item even"><p class="PleadingbodytextCxSpMiddle">A photographer and a photo agency are teaming up to restart a legal war against online linking in the United States.</p>
<p class="PleadingbodytextCxSpMiddle">When Internet users browse websites containing images, those images often are retrieved from third-parties, rather than the author of the website. Sometimes, unbeknownst to the website author, the linked image infringes someone else’s copyright.</p>
<p class="PleadingbodytextCxSpMiddle">For more than a decade, <a href="https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2007/05/p10-v-google-public-interest-prevails-digital-copyright-showdown" target="_blank">courts have held</a> that the linker isn’t responsible for that infringement unless they do something else to encourage it, beyond linking. Liability rests with the entity that hosts it in the first place—not someone who simply links to it, probably has no idea that it’s infringing, and isn’t ultimately in control of what content the server will provide when a browser contacts it.</p>
<p class="PleadingbodytextCxSpMiddle">Justin Goldman, backed by Getty Images, wants to change that. They’ve accused online publications, including Breitbart, Time, and the Boston Globe, of copyright infringement for publishing articles that link to a photo of NFL star Tom Brady. Goldman took the photo, someone else tweeted it, and the news organizations embedded a link to the tweet in their coverage. Goldman and Getty say those stories infringe Goldman’s copyright.</p>
<p class="PleadingbodytextCxSpMiddle">This claim is dangerous to online expression, and we've filed an <a href="https://www.eff.org/document/goldman-v-breitbart-eff-amicus-brief" target="_blank">amicus brief</a> asking a federal district court to grant the defendants’ request to end the case as a matter of law.</p>
<p class="PleadingbodytextCxSpMiddle">For more than a decade courts have recognized that claims like Goldman’s and Getty’s are at odds with how the Internet works. When users visit a website, their computers send a request to that website’s address for a text file written in “Hyper-Text Markup Language” (HTML). That HTML text file includes, among other things, words to be displayed and web addresses of additional content such as images. HTML files are text only and don’t contain images—they <i>refer </i>to images according to their web address via in-line linking. The server at the linked web address may transmit an image in response to such a request, but the original website does not. The leading case is <a href="https://www.eff.org/cases/perfect-10-v-google" target="_blank"><i>Perfect 10 v. Google</i></a>, in which adult entertainment publisher Perfect 10 sued Google's Image Search service, arguing that Google should be held liable for any copyright infringement that occurred on sites to which Google linked.</p>
<p class="PleadingbodytextCxSpMiddle">The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals correctly disagreed, <a href="https://www.eff.org/document/perfect-10-v-google-ninth-circuit-opinion-amendedhttps://www.eff.org/document/perfect-10-v-google-ninth-circuit-opinion-amended" target="_blank">ruling</a> that because Google’s computers didn’t store the photographic images, the search engine company didn’t possess a copy of the images and therefore did not transmit or communicate them for the purposes of the Copyright Act. This approach is known as the “server test” because it looks to who actually houses the work on its server and controls whether it will “serve up” the infringing content. The rule established that the principal responsibility for any infringement lies with the entity that actually communicates the work to the world, rather than the myriad entities that simply tell browsers where to go to request access to an image file.</p>
<p class="PleadingbodytextCxSpMiddle">Linking is an essential tool for free expression and innovation. E-commerce sites can employ embedded links enabling consumers to comparison shop. Companies, schools, and libraries can use links to educate and empower users. Newspapers and bloggers use the Twitter posts of President Donald Trump in their stories. An art teacher can embed images of famous works on her web page for students to learn about particular art styles. These are all normal, everyday activities that Goldman and Getty would argue are infringement, tying websites into a legal knot and degrading users’ ability to learn and innovate.</p>
<p class="PleadingbodytextCxSpMiddle">We hope the court sees through this dangerous attempt to undermine the in-line linking system that benefits millions of Internet users every day.</p>
</div></div></div><div class="field field--name-field-related-cases field--type-node-reference field--label-above"><div class="field__label">Related Cases:&nbsp;</div><div class="field__items"><div class="field__item even"><a href="/pt-br/cases/perfect-10-v-google">Perfect 10 v. Google</a></div></div></div>Tue, 24 Oct 2017 22:30:38 +000097241 at https://www.eff.orgLegal AnalysisCreativity & InnovationFair UseCopyright TrollsDMCAKit WalshKaren GulloLibrarians Call on W3C to Rethink its Support for DRMhttps://www.eff.org/pt-br/deeplinks/2017/07/librarians-call-w3c-rethink-its-support-drm
<div class="field field--name-body field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden"><div class="field__items"><div class="field__item even"><p>The International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA) has called on the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) to <a href="https://www.ifla.org/node/11520">reconsider its decision to incorporate digital locks into official HTML standards</a>. Last week, W3C announced its decision to publish Encrypted Media Extensions (EME)—a standard for applying locks to web video—in its HTML specifications.</p>
<p>IFLA urges W3C to consider the impact that EME will have on the work of libraries and archives:</p>
<blockquote><p>While recognising both the potential for technological protection measures to hinder infringing uses, as well as the additional simplicity offered by this solution, IFLA is concerned that it will become easier to apply such measures to digital content without also making it easier for libraries and their users to remove measures that prevent legitimate uses of works.</p>
<p>[…]</p>
<p>Technological protection measures […] do not always stop at preventing illicit activities, and can often serve to stop libraries and their users from making fair uses of works. This can affect activities such as preservation, or inter-library document supply. To make it easier to apply TPMs, regardless of the nature of activities they are preventing, is to risk unbalancing copyright itself.</p></blockquote>
<p>IFLA’s concerns are an excellent example of the dangers of digital locks (sometimes referred to as <a href="https://www.eff.org/issues/drm">digital rights management or simply DRM</a>): under the U.S. <a href="https://www.eff.org/issues/dmca">Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA)</a> and similar copyright laws in many other countries, it’s illegal to circumvent those locks or to provide others with the means of doing so. That provision puts librarians in legal danger when they come across DRM in the course of their work—not to mention educators, historians, security researchers, journalists, and any number of other people who work with copyrighted material in completely lawful ways.</p>
<p>Of course, as IFLA’s statement notes, W3C doesn’t have the authority to change copyright law, but it should consider the implications of copyright law in its policy decisions: “While clearly it may not be in the purview of the W3C to change the laws and regulations regulating copyright around the world, they must take account of the implications of their decisions on the rights of the users of copyright works.”</p>
<p>EFF is in the process of <a href="https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2017/07/notice-w3c-effs-appeal-directors-decision-eme">appealing W3C’s controversial decision</a>, and we’re urging the standards body to adopt a covenant protecting security researchers from anti-circumvention laws.</p>
</div></div></div>Wed, 19 Jul 2017 00:36:02 +000096599 at https://www.eff.orgCommentaryCreativity & InnovationFair UseDMCADRMElliot HarmonCopyright Office Proposes Modest Fixes to DMCA 1201, Leaves Fundamental Flaws Untouchedhttps://www.eff.org/pt-br/deeplinks/2017/06/copyright-office-proposes-modest-fixes-dmca-1201-leaves-fundamental-flaws
<div class="field field--name-body field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden"><div class="field__items"><div class="field__item even"><p>The U.S. Copyright Office just released a long-awaited <a href="https://www.copyright.gov/newsnet/2017/671.html">report</a> about <a href="https://www.eff.org/issues/dmca">Section 1201</a>, the law that bans circumventing digital restrictions on copyrighted works. Despite <a href="https://www.eff.org/wp/unintended-consequences-under-dmca/archive">years of evidence</a> that the social costs of the law far outweigh any benefits, the Copyright Office is mostly happy with the law as it is. The Office does recommend that Congress enact some narrow reforms aimed at protecting security research, repair activities, and access for people with disabilities.</p>
<p>We’re sorry the Office didn’t take a stronger stance. Section 1201, part of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, makes it illegal to circumvent any “technological protection measure” (often called DRM) that controls access to copyrighted works. It also bans the manufacture and sale of tools to circumvent those digital locks. Although it was pitched as a new legal protection for copyright holders to prevent infringement, the law has given major entertainment companies and other copyright owners lots of control over non-infringing uses of technology, allowing them to lock out competition in repair and re-sale businesses, and to threaten and silence security researchers. The law has some exceptions, but they are far too narrow and complicated.</p>
<p>Those flaws are one reason EFF is <a href="https://www.eff.org/cases/green-v-us-department-justice">challenging</a> Section 1201 in court on behalf of researcher Matthew Green and technologist Andrew “bunnie” Huang. In the lawsuit, filed last year, we <a href="https://www.eff.org/document/green-v-doj-motion-preliminary-injunction">explain</a> why Section 1201 is an unlawful restraint on speech and ask the court to strike the law down. Congress has also considered several fixes to the law over the last few years, ranging from <a href="https://www.eff.org/document/hr-1892-unlocking-technology-act">comprehensive fixes</a> to smaller corrections.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, after the last rulemaking, the Copyright Office <a href="https://www.copyright.gov/policy/1201/">asked</a> for public comments and held <a href="https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2015/05/eff-testifies-exemptions-dmca-section-1201">hearings</a> about Section 1201, leading to the <a href="https://www.copyright.gov/newsnet/2017/671.html">report</a> released on Thursday. In the report, the Copyright Office announces its belief that “the statute’s overall structure and scope . . . remains sound.” The Office also believes that bypassing access controls can violate Section 1201 even when the purpose of the circumvention has nothing to do with copyright infringement. Federal appeals courts are sharply divided on this question, and the Copyright Office seems to be putting its thumb on the scales in favor of rightsholder control and against freedom of expression and innovation.</p>
<p>If a Section 1201 violation can happen without any connection to copyright infringement, then Section 1201 gives copyright holders (and DRM vendors) vast control over technology users, beyond what copyright law already gave them. According to the Copyright Office’s interpretation, Section 1201 gives copyright holders “control over the terms of access to their works online.” That means that by wrapping software, music, games, video, or text in a layer of DRM, copyright holders gain the ability to dictate when, where, and how we can use those things, and the technology we can use to interact with them. And it means that copyright holders can nullify the public’s fair use rights. The Copyright Office’s approach here is the wrong approach, and it deepens the law’s constitutional problems.</p>
<p>The report is also notable for what it doesn’t contain: any evidence that we need a ban on circumventing digital locks in the first place. The report points out that “explosive growth in legitimate digital content delivery services” happened “after the enactment of Section 1201,” but it doesn’t attempt to show that the law was what caused that growth. It also mentions a statement by a Senate committee in 1998, that “copyright owners will hesitate to make their works readily available on the Internet without reasonable assurance that they will be protected against massive piracy.” Today, of course, the Internet contains many lifetimes worth of amazing creative work of all kinds, made available by creatives without any DRM, so that prediction did not come true.</p>
<p>The report doesn’t cite any studies or data showing that Section 1201 has been beneficial to creativity or the digital economy. And the only experts it cites to are entertainment companies with an interest in keeping the control that 1201 provides them, and the same members of Congress who requested the report in the first place—hardly a convincing case.</p>
<p>The report does make some recommendations for fixing the law, including new and expanded exceptions to the ban on circumvention. The Copyright Office recommends that Congress expand the permanent exemptions for security testing and encryption research, by removing or mitigating restrictions in those exemptions that have made those exemptions too uncertain for many in the computer security community to rely on.</p>
<p>The report also recommends a new permanent exemption for assistive technologies for people with disabilities. That change is overdue, as advocates for print-disabled people have had to request exemptions for screen-reading and other assistive technologies every three years for nearly two decades.</p>
<p>In the last rulemaking cycle, EFF and other organizations requested exemptions covering maintenance, repair, and modification of software. One of the unfortunate effects of Section 1201 in recent years has been to cast a cloud of legal uncertainty over repair businesses ranging from cars to smartphones, and to block the re-use of devices like phone handsets and printer cartridges. The Copyright Office report recommends a new permanent exemption covering “diagnosis, maintenance, repair, and obsolescence” activities, not limited to any specific technologies. That would be a positive step. But the report rejects an exemption for modifying software for other reasons, such as to improve or customize the software. That’s a problem, because those activities are largely legal and beneficial, aside from the legal risk created by Section 1201.</p>
<p>Finally, the report offers some fixes to the rulemaking process for temporary exemptions that happens every three years. Notably, the Copyright Office will offer a way to renew exemptions from previous cycles with what they claim will be minimal time and expense. We’re expecting the Copyright Office to begin a new rulemaking cycle soon, so we’ll get to see how well this works in practice and whether they are able to make the process less expensive. In several places in the report, the Copyright Office offers to try to make temporary exemptions broader and more useful to the populations they affect. We’ll be holding them to that.</p>
<p>However, the Copyright Office still insists that it should be unlawful for anyone to distribute tools to allow beneficiaries of rulemaking exemptions to take advantage of the exemption, because “it would be impossible to control” subsequent uses of such tools. The real, proven need for circumvention has to take a back seat to the hypothetical scenario where the beneficiary then decides to infringe.</p>
<p>It’s too bad the Copyright Office won’t address the fundamental flaws of Section 1201, especially given the multitude of problems that the report acknowledges. A simple, comprehensive fix like the <a href="https://www.eff.org/document/hr-1892-unlocking-technology-act">Unlocking Technology Act</a> introduced by Rep. Zoe Lofgren would solve many of the problems that Section 1201 causes for security professionals, tinkerers, people with disabilities, repair and resale businesses, teachers, students, libraries, and many others. A piecemeal approach will solve just a few of the current problems, at the cost of ever more complexity and a continuing demand for massive public interest resources to make the exemption process work. Congress, or the courts, should do more.</p>
</div></div></div><div class="field field--name-field-related-cases field--type-node-reference field--label-above"><div class="field__label">Related Cases:&nbsp;</div><div class="field__items"><div class="field__item even"><a href="/pt-br/cases/2015-dmca-rulemaking">2015 DMCA Rulemaking</a></div></div></div>Thu, 29 Jun 2017 00:42:00 +000096369 at https://www.eff.orgCommentaryPolicy AnalysisDMCADMCA RulemakingMitch StoltzCopyright Law Shouldn’t Pick Winnershttps://www.eff.org/pt-br/deeplinks/2017/06/copyright-law-shouldnt-pick-winners
<div class="field field--name-body field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden"><div class="field__items"><div class="field__item even"><h3>Mandatory Filtering Proposals Curb Competition</h3><p>When looking at a proposed policy regulating Internet businesses, here’s a good question to ask yourself: would this bar new companies from competing with the current big players? Google will probably be fine, but what about the <em>next</em> Google?</p><p>In the past few years, some large movie studios and record labels have been promoting a proposal that would effectively require user-generated media platforms to use copyright bots similar to YouTube’s infamous Content ID system. Today’s YouTube will have no trouble complying, but imagine if such requirements had been in place when YouTube was a three-person company. If copyright bots become the law, the barrier to entry for new social media companies will get a lot higher.</p><h3>A Brief History of Copyright Bots</h3><p>In many ways, the history of copyright bots is really the history of Content ID. Content ID was not the first bot on the market, but it’s the template for what major film studios and record labels have come to expect of content platforms.</p><p>When Google acquired YouTube in 2006, the platform was under heavy fire from major film studios and record labels, which complained in court and in Congress that the platform enabled widespread copyright infringement. YouTube complied with all of the requirements that the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) puts on content platforms—including following the <a href="https://www.eff.org/issues/dmca">notice-and-takedown procedure</a> when rights holders accuse their users of infringement. The DMCA essentially offers content platforms a trade—if they do their part to tackle infringing activity, they’re sheltered from copyright liability under the DMCA safe harbor rules. Hollywood agreed to those rules back in 1998, but now it wanted to rewrite the deal.</p><p>In response to legal and commercial pressure from content industries, Google developed Content ID, a program that goes beyond YouTube’s DMCA obligations. Content ID doesn’t replace notice-and-takedown; it creates a system for <em>proactive</em> filtering that often lets rights holders remove allegedly infringing content without even having to send a DMCA takedown request.</p><p>Rights holders submit large databases of video and audio fingerprints, and YouTube patrols new uploads for closely matching content. Rights holders can choose to have YouTube automatically remove or monetize videos, or they can review them manually and decide what they want YouTube to do with them. There’s a built-in appeals process (which includes escalation to a DMCA takedown, with the fair use consideration the DMCA requires), but <a href="https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2015/05/congrats-10-year-anniversary-youtube-now-please-fix-content-id">it has problems of its own</a>.</p><p>For better or worse, Content ID changed YouTube. It bought the company some goodwill with big content owners, many of which have now become prolific YouTube adopters.</p><h3>Writing Bots into the Law</h3><p>But the success of Content ID has led some rights holders to the dangerous notion that filtering alone can end the copyright wars. Now, copyright bots have begun to show up all over the Internet—often in places where they make no sense, like <a href="https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2015/11/why-facebook-inspecting-your-private-videos">your private videos on Facebook</a>. And it appears that some major content owners won’t be satisfied until web platforms have no choice but to adopt systems like Content ID – in other words, turning a voluntary system into a mandate.</p><p>Over the past few years, lobbyists representing large content owners both <a href="https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2016/01/notice-and-stay-down-really-filter-everything">in the U.S.</a> and <a href="https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2017/05/while-eu-copyright-protests-mount-proposals-get-even-worse">in Europe</a> have begun to demand mandatory filtering. These proposals vary, but their goals are the same: a world where social media platforms are vulnerable to massive copyright infringement damages unless they go to extreme measures to police their members’ uploads for potential infringement. The Chinese government has <a href="https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2017/04/chinese-snooping-foreshadows-future-copyright-enforcement">gone all-in on copyright filtering</a>, partnering with Hollywood to scan not just people’s social media posts but even their private devices.</p><p>For the record, <a href="https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2016/02/content-id-and-rise-machines">copyright bots can raise major problems</a> even when they aren’t compelled by law. In principle, <a href="https://www.eff.org/pages/fair-use-principles-user-generated-video-content">bots can be useful</a> for weeding out cases of obvious infringement and obvious non­-infringement, but they can’t be trusted to identify and allow many instances of fair use. What’s more, their appeals and conflict-resolution systems are often completely opaque to users and seem designed to favor large content companies.</p><p>Still, there’s a world of difference between platforms implementing copyright bots as a business decision and being forced to do so by governments. The latter creates a huge, expensive stumbling block for a company to cross before it can ever compete in the market.</p><h3>Narrow Regulations and Broad Patents</h3><p>It gets worse. When companies are given only narrow space in which to compete and innovate, it becomes easier for incumbents to set legal traps within those boundaries.</p><p>Microsoft was recently issued a patent called “<a href="https://www.google.com/patents/US9614850">Disabling prohibited content and identifying repeat offenders in service provider storage systems</a>.” It’s a patent on copyright bots, and the Patent Office issued it even though its claims were far from novel: Microsoft only filed it in 2013, a full six years after Google introduced Content ID. <img src="/files/2017/06/20/filtering.png" style="display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" /> We don’t know what Microsoft plans to do with its patent, but we do know that patents this broad can <a href="https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2017/04/stupid-patents-month-taxi-dispatch-tech">wreak havoc on a marketplace</a>, casting doubt over <a href="https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2017/03/stupid-patent-month-storing-files-folders">standard and obvious business practices</a>. And with both Hollywood and governments pressuring content platforms to implement filtering, it’s easy to imagine a time when a broad patent like Microsoft’s would apply by definition to essentially every platform that tried to enter the market.</p><p>It might be tempting to think that software patents on copyright filtering will incentivize innovation in filtering, thus making copyright bots more accessible to small platforms. But a patent as broad and generic as Microsoft's risks cutting off innovation well short of that goal: overbroad patents blanket an entire field, rarely disclosing any information of value about the underlying technology.</p><p>Business regulations should provide companies wide berth to innovate, experiment, and differentiate themselves from competitors. Patents should cover specific, narrowly defined inventions. Narrow regulations and broad patents are a dangerous combination.</p><h3>Keep Safe Harbors Safe</h3><p>Safe harbor protections are essential to how today’s Internet works—without them, many Internet companies would simply be exposed to too much legal risk to operate. Safe harbors have given us the entire social media boom and many other Internet technologies that we take for granted every day.</p><p>So any proposal that makes it more burdensome to comply with safe harbor requirements should be examined closely to make sure that it doesn’t close the market to new competitors. Mandatory copyright filtering is likely to do exactly that.</p><p>If the kind of laws big media companies are proposing today had been in place 12 years ago, it’s doubtful that YouTube could have survived its early days as a startup. And if those laws get implemented today, new players will need tremendous resources just to get started. Mandatory filtering would create a narrower playing field for Internet businesses and let the most successful players use legal tricks to maintain their advantages. It’s a bad idea.</p>
</div></div></div>Tue, 20 Jun 2017 22:51:46 +000096287 at https://www.eff.orgCommentaryCreativity & InnovationFair UseDMCAPatentsElliot HarmonBook Review: The End of Ownershiphttps://www.eff.org/pt-br/deeplinks/2017/05/book-review-end-ownership
<div class="field field--name-body field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden"><div class="field__items"><div class="field__item even"><h3>In the digital age, a lot depends on whether we actually own our stuff, and who gets to decide that in the first place.</h3>
<p>In <a href="http://www.theendofownership.com/">The End of Ownership: Personal Property in the Digital Age</a>, <a href="http://www.theendofownership.com/abouttheauthors/">Aaron Perzanowski and Jason Schultz</a> walk us through a detailed and highly readable explanation of exactly how we’re losing our rights to own and control our media and devices, and what’s at stake for us individually and as a society. The authors carefully trace the technological changes and legal changes that have, they argue, eroded our rights to do as we please with our stuff. Among these changes are the shift towards cloud distribution and subscription models, expanding copyright and patent laws, Digital Rights Management (DRM), and use of End User License Agreements (EULAs) to assert all content is “licensed” rather than “owned.” And Perzanowski and Schultz present compelling evidence that many of us are unaware of what we’re giving up when we “buy” digital goods.</p>
<p>Ownership, as the authors explain, provides a lot of benefits. Most importantly, ownership of our stuff supports our individual autonomy, defined by the authors as our “sense of self-direction, that our behavior reflects our own preferences and choices rather than the dictates of some external authority.” It lets us choose what we do with the stuff that we buy – we can keep it, lend it, resell it, repair it, give it away, or modify it, without seeking anyone’s permission. Those rights have broader implications for society as a whole – when we can resell our stuff, we enable secondary and resale markets that help disseminate knowledge and technology, support intellectual privacy, and promote competition and user innovation. And they’re critical to the ability of libraries and archives to serve their missions – when a library owns the books or media in its collection, it can lend those books and media almost without restriction, and it generally will do so in a way that safeguards the intellectual privacy of its users.</p>
<p>These rights, long established for personal property, are safeguarded in part by copyright law’s “exhaustion doctrine.” As the authors make clear, that doctrine, which holds that some of a copyright holders’ rights to control what happens to a copy are “exhausted” when they sell the copy, is a necessary feature in copyright law’s effort to limit the powers granted to copyright holders so that overbroad copyright restrictions do not undermine the intended benefit to the public as a whole.</p>
<p>Throughout the book, Perzanowski and Schultz present a historical account of rights holder attempts to overcome exhaustion and exert more control over what people do with their media and devices. The authors describe book publishers’ hostile, “fearful” response to lending libraries in the 1930’s:</p>
<blockquote><p>…a group of publishers hired PR pioneer Edward Bernays….to fight against used “dollar books” and the practice of book lending. Bernays decided to run a contest to “look for a pejorative word for the book borrower, the wretch who raised hell with book sales and deprived authors of earned royalties.”…Suggested names included “bookweevil,”…”libracide,” “booklooter,” “bookbum,” “culture vulture,” … with the winning entry being “booksneak.”</p></blockquote>
<p>Publishers weren’t alone, the authors show that both record labels and Hollywood studios fought against the rise of secondary markets for music and home video rental, respectively. Hollywood fought a particularly aggressive battle against the VCR. In the end, the authors note, Hollywood continued to “resist[] the home video market,” at least until they gained more control over the distribution technology.</p>
<p>But while historically, overzealous rights holders may have been stymied to some extent by the law’s limitation of their rights, recent technological changes have made their quest a lot easier.</p>
<p>“In a little more than the decade,” the authors explain, we’ve seen dramatic changes in content distribution, from tangible copies, to digital downloads, to the cloud, and now, increasingly, to subscription services. These technological changes have precipitated corresponding changes in our abilities to own the works in our libraries. While, as the authors explain, copyright law has long relied on the existence of a physical copy to draw the lines between rights holders’ and copy owners’ respective rights, “[e]ach of these shifts in distribution technology has taken us another step away from the copy-centric vision at the heart of copyright law.” Unfortunately, the law hasn’t kept up: <b>“</b>Even as copies escape our possession and disappear from our experience, copyright law continues to insist that without them, we only have the rights copyright holders are kind enough to grant us.”</p>
<p>Perzanowski and Schultz point to<a href="https://www.eff.org/issues/terms-of-abuse"> End User License Agreements (EULAs),</a> with their excessive length, one-sided, take-it-or-leave-it nature, complicated legalese, and relentless insistence that what you buy is only “licensed” to you (not “owned”), as a main culprit behind the decline of ownership. They provide some pretty standout examples – including EULAs that exceed the lengths of classic works of literature, and those that claim to prevent a startling array of activity. For the authors, these EULAs</p>
<blockquote><p>. . . create private regulatory schemes that impose all manner of obligations and restrictions, often without meaningful notice, much less assent. And in the process, licenses effectively rewrite the balance between creators and the public that our IP laws are meant to maintain. They are an effort to redefine sales, which transfer ownership to the buyer, as something more like conditional grants of access.</p></blockquote>
<p>And unfortunately, despite their departure from some of contract law’s core principles, some courts have permitted their enforcement, “so long as the license recites the proper incantations.”</p>
<p>The authors are at their most poetic in their criticism of <a href="https://www.eff.org/issues/drm">Digital Rights Management (DRM)</a> and <a href="https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2016/07/research-and-remixes-law-wont-allow">Section 1201 of the DMCA</a>, perhaps the worst scourges of ownership in the book. As they point out, even in the absence of restrictive EULA terms, DRM embeds rights holders’ control directly into our technologies themselves – in our cars, our toys, our insulin pumps and heart monitors. Comparing it to Ray Bradbury’s <em>Farenheit 451</em><i>, </i>they explain:</p>
<blockquote><p>While not nearly as dramatic as flamethrowers and fighting robot dogs, the unilateral right to enforce such restrictions through DRM exerts many of the types of social control Bradbury feared. Reading, listening, and watching become contingent and surveilled. That system dramatically shifts power and autonomy away from individuals in favor of retailers and rights holders, allowing for enforcement without anything approaching due process.</p></blockquote>
<p>As Perzanowski and Schultz explain, these shifts aren’t just about our relationship to our stuff. They recalibrate the relationship between rights holders and consumers on a broad scale:</p>
<blockquote><p>When we say that personal property rights are being eroded or eliminated in the digital marketplace, we mean that rights to use, to control, to keep, and to transfer purchases – physical and digital – are being plucked from the bundle of rights purchasers have historically enjoyed and given instead to IP rights holders. That in turn means that those rights holders are given greater control over how each of us consume media, use our devices, interact with our friends and family, spend our money, and live our lives. Cast in these terms, it is clear that there is a looming conflict between the respective rights of consumers and IP rights holders.</p></blockquote>
<p>The authors repeatedly remind us that who makes the decision between what is owned and what is licensed is crucial – both on the individual and societal scale. When we allow companies to define when we can own our stuff, through EULAs or Digital Rights Management, we shift crucially important decisions about how our society should work away from legislatures, courts, and public processes, to private entities with little incentive to serve our interests. And, when we don’t know exactly what we give up when we “buy” digital goods, we’re not making an informed choice. Further, when we opt for mere access over ownership, our choices have broader societal effects. The more we shift to licensing and subscription models, the more it may become harder for those who would rather own their stuff to exercise that option – stores close, companies shift distribution models, and some works disappear from the market.</p>
<p>In the end, Perzanowski and Schultz leave us with a thread of hope that we still might see a future for ownership of digital goods. They believe that at least some courts and policy makers, and “[p]erhaps more importantly, readers, listeners, and tinkerers – ordinary people – are expressing their own reluctance to accept ownership as an artifact of some bygone predigital era.” And they provide a set of arguments and reform proposals to martial in the fight to save ownership before it’s too late. They lay out an array of technological and legal strategies to reduce deceptive practices, curb abusive EULAs, and, reform copyright law. The most thoroughly developed of these proposes a legislative restructuring of copyright exhaustion in a flexible, multi-factor format, in part modeled on the United States’ fair use doctrine. It’s a good idea, and it would probably work. But (and the authors acknowledge this) even modest attempts at reform have failed to garner the necessary support in Congress to move forward. A more ambitious proposal, like this one, seems at least unlikely in the near term.</p>
<p>Overall, the End of Ownership is a deeply concerning exposition of how we’re losing valuable rights. The questions it raises about whether and how we can preserve the benefits of ownership in the digital age will likely continue to be relevant even as technology, and the law, evolve. Most critically, it asks us to rethink who we want making the decisions that shape how we live our lives. While the book tackles complex issues in law and technology, it does so in a way that’s accessible and interesting both for lawyers and laypersons alike. The book’s ample real world examples of everything from disappearing e-book libraries, to tractors, dolls, and medical devices resistant to their owners’ control bring home both the impact of abstract legal doctrines and the urgency of their reform.</p>
<p> To learn about some of EFF’s efforts to protect your rights of ownership and autonomy, you can:</p>
<ul><li>read about our <a href="https://www.eff.org/cases/green-v-us-department-justice">Green v. DOJ lawsuit</a>, seeking to overturn the law that gives DRM its legal fangs;</li>
</ul><ul><li>read our <a href="https://www.eff.org/files/2016/04/20/pk_eff_r-street_brief-iso-impression-petition.pdf">amicus brief</a> before the Supreme Court in <a href="https://www.eff.org/cases/impression-products-inc-v-lexmark-international-inc">Lexmark</a>, arguing that patent ownership <a href="https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2017/03/patents-are-big-part-why-we-cant-own-nice-things-supreme-court-should-fix">shouldn’t give ongoing rights to control</a> use of a product that has been sold; and</li>
</ul><ul><li>read our <a href="https://www.eff.org/document/public-citizen-and-eff-amicus-brief-goren">amicus brief</a> in <a href="https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2016/06/shouldnt-be-copyright-case-and-neither-party-owns-copyright-anyway">Goren v. Small Justice</a>, explaining why surprising terms in clickthrough agreements like EULAs should not override fundamental rights.</li>
</ul></div></div></div>Wed, 24 May 2017 21:56:28 +000096054 at https://www.eff.orgCreativity & InnovationDefend Your Right to Repair!DMCADRMFixing Copyright? The 2013-2016 Copyright Review ProcessTerms Of (Ab)UseKerry SheehanAnother Lawsuit Tries To Force An ISP Into Being A Copyright Cophttps://www.eff.org/pt-br/deeplinks/2017/04/another-lawsuit-tries-force-isp-being-copyright-cop
<div class="field field--name-body field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden"><div class="field__items"><div class="field__item even"><p>Major record labels are once again trying to force an Internet service provider into enforcing their copyrights by cutting off customers from the Internet over copyright accusations. The suit is led by a group of record labels including UMG Recordings, Warner Brothers Records, Sony Music Entertainment, and Arista Music. The <a href="https://artistrightswatchdotcom.files.wordpress.com/2017/04/grande-2017-04-21_1_original-complaint.pdf">lawsuit they filed</a> [PDF] against Texas broadband provider Grande Communications suffers from many of the same due process problems as the <a href="https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2016/12/music-industry-shouldnt-be-able-cut-your-internet-access">BMG Music Publishing v. Cox Communications</a> case, which is on appeal.</p>
<p>The issue in both cases is whether and when a home broadband provider should cut off a customer’s Internet service when someone using that service is accused of copyright infringement. The legal hook for this controversy is the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, <a href="https://www.eff.org/issues/dmca">Section 512</a>, which protects ISPs and other Internet intermediaries against the risk of massive copyright penalties stemming from a customer’s copyright infringement. But to get the protection of Section 512, an ISP has to terminate “subscribers and account holders … who are repeat infringers” in “appropriate circumstances.”</p>
<p>The courts haven’t yet said much about when and how it’s “appropriate” to terminate ISP subscribers. Most of the cases decided so far involved subscription-based websites, not ISPs that provide a person’s main (or only) link to the entire Internet. As EFF and Public Knowledge <a href="https://www.publicknowledge.org/documents/brief-bmg-v-cox">told</a> the Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit in the BMG v. Cox case, the circumstances where it’s appropriate to cut off a home Internet subscription entirely are few and far between.</p>
<p>In the Cox case, the lower court’s decision to strip Cox of its Section 512 safe harbor seemed to be driven by a series of unfortunate emails uncovered in litigation. The emails suggested that Cox employees did not, in fact, terminate any customers for repeated copyright infringement, and that this policy was driven by a desire to preserve revenues. But that court—the Eastern District of Virginia—went too far when it implied that ISPs risk losing their legal protection unless they terminate some significant number of customers per month as a punishment for infringement. That’s a recipe for over-enforcement that we’re hoping the Fourth Circuit will correct.</p>
<p>In the case filed on Friday, record labels seem to be looking to repeat the Virginia court’s wrong turns. Here’s how the labels’ complaint describes home broadband service:</p>
<blockquote><p>[F]or those subscribers who want to pirate more and larger files at faster speeds, Grande obliges them in return for higher fees.</p>
<p>...</p>
<p>[T]he availability of music – and particularly Plaintiffs’ music – acts as a powerful draw for subscribers to Grande’s service.</p></blockquote>
<p>It’s preposterous to suggest that in 2017, the reason why people get high-speed Internet at home is to get free music, illegally. But that’s the worldview of the major record labels (and their trade association, the Recording Industry Association of America). And it’s the worldview they’re presenting to the judge in this complaint. Never mind that a good Internet connection is now a virtual necessity for doing homework, obtaining government services, participating in politics, and communicating with nearly everyone. Portraying broadband as being primarily about entertainment contributes to bad decisions like the district court’s ruling in Cox.</p>
<p>The labels’ complaint against Grande also raises an argument that major media and entertainment companies have been making since the earliest days of the Internet—an argument that hasn’t improved with age. They claim that because Grande runs a service that transmits information, and because some people transmit infringing copies of music recordings, Grande should have a legal responsibility “to minimize the infringing capabilities of its service.” This is like saying that an electric utility needs to prevent people from using electricity when they commit crimes.</p>
<p>One of the main purposes of DMCA Section 512 is to make clear that Internet service providers aren’t required to be copyright police. And that legal protection is the reason we have the multitude of Internet services we have as we know it today. The courts have generally rejected this perennial argument of the music and film industries, but the suit against Grande shows that they haven’t abandoned it yet.</p>
<p>There are many ways this new lawsuit could go. But whatever deals are struck along the way, and whatever facts come to light, the court should keep the importance of Internet access in mind, and reject the tired and dangerous argument that Internet services should act as copyright police.</p>
<p><em>UPDATE 05/08/2017: We have updated this post with additional information about the plaintiffs in this case and added a link to the complaint.</em></p>
</div></div></div>Thu, 27 Apr 2017 01:16:01 +000095788 at https://www.eff.orgFair UseDMCAMitch StoltzNinth Circuit Sends a Message to Platforms: Use a Moderator, Go to Trialhttps://www.eff.org/pt-br/deeplinks/2017/04/ninth-circuit-sends-message-platforms-use-moderator-go-trial
<div class="field field--name-body field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden"><div class="field__items"><div class="field__item even"><p>After almost two decades of litigation, you’d think the contours of the <a href="https://www.eff.org/issues/dmca">Digital Millennium Copyright Act</a> (DMCA) safe harbors would be settled. But the cases just keep coming, and while the overall trend is <a href="https://www.eff.org/cases/umg-v-veoh">pretty</a> <a href="https://www.eff.org/cases/viacom-v-youtube">favorable</a>, <a href="/files/2017/04/08/mavrix-livejournal-9thcir.pdf">the latest ruling takes an unfortunate turn</a> (PDF).</p>
<p>The case involves LiveJournal, a social media platform that allows users to create “communities” based on a common theme or subject. The communities are partly managed by moderators, who review posts (including photos) that users submit to make sure they follow the rules for posting and commenting created by the community. A community focused on celebrity news, called “Oh No They Didn’t” (ONTD), became particularly popular, garnering millions of views every month.</p>
<p>Enter Mavrix Photography, a photo agency that specialized in celebrities. Mavrix discovered that several of its celebrity photos had been posted on ONTD between 2010 and 2014. Rather than sending a DMCA takedown notice, Mavrix went straight to court to sue for copyright infringement. LiveJournal took the posts down immediately, and invoked the DMCA safe harbors, asserting that it was simply “hosting content at the direction of a user.” The district court agreed.</p>
<p>The Ninth Circuit took another view, based in large part on LiveJournal’s reliance on moderators to review and delete content. Those moderators, the court said, (1) might be LiveJournal’s agents; and, as such, (2) might have played such an active role in shaping the content of the ONTD community that content hosted on LiveJournal was not “at the direction of the user” (as required by the DMCA) but rather “at the direction of LiveJournal;” and (3) might have acquired actual or “red flag” knowledge of infringement that could be attributed to LiveJournal. So the court sent the case back to district court to let a jury figure it out—a very expensive proposition.</p>
<p>The court’s approach was surprising as a matter of law and policy. There is no dispute that LiveJournal users initially submitted the allegedly infringing content. <a href="/files/2017/04/08/mavrix-livejournal-cdcal.pdf">As the district court held</a> (PDF), “[U]sers of the LiveJournal service, not LiveJournal, select the content to be posted, put that content together into a post, and upload the post to LiveJournal’s service. LiveJournal does not solicit any specific infringing material from its users or edit the content of its users’ posts.”</p>
<p>The fact that moderators reviewed those submissions shouldn’t change the analysis. The DMCA does not forbid service providers from using moderators. Indeed, <a href="/files/2017/04/08/ccia-library-eff-mavrix-v-livejournal-amicus-brief.pdf">as we explained in the amicus brief</a> (PDF) we filed with CCIA and several library associations, many online services have employees (or volunteers) who review content posted on their services, to determine (for example) whether the content violates community guidelines or terms of service. Others lack the technical or human resources to do so. Access to DMCA protections does not and should not turn on this choice.</p>
<p>The irony here is that copyright owners are constantly pressuring service providers to monitor and moderate the content on their services more actively. This decision just gave them a powerful incentive to refuse.</p>
</div></div></div><div class="field field--name-field-related-cases field--type-node-reference field--label-above"><div class="field__label">Related Cases:&nbsp;</div><div class="field__items"><div class="field__item even"><a href="/pt-br/cases/mavrix-photographs-v-live-journal">Mavrix Photographs v. Live Journal</a></div></div></div>Sat, 08 Apr 2017 18:12:31 +000095595 at https://www.eff.orgCommentaryFair UseDMCACorynne McSherryWhat's up at the W3C: further reading for Reply All listenershttps://www.eff.org/pt-br/node/95159
<div class="field field--name-body field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden"><div class="field__items"><div class="field__item even"><p>The <a href="https://gimletmedia.com/episode/90-matt-lieber-goes-to-dinner/">latest episode of the technology podcast Reply All</a> features an excellent summary of some of the issues with the World Wide Web Consortium's current project to create a standard for restricting the use of videos on the web; we've created this post for people who've just listened to the episode and want to learn more.</p>
<p><strong>What's going on?</strong></p>
<p>The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) is a standards body: they work to create open standards, rules for connecting up the web that anyone can follow, guaranteeing that anyone can make a web browser, web server, or website.</p>
<p>In 2013, the W3C gave in to pressure from a few entertainment companies and big tech companies to make a new kind of standard: a standard for limiting how people could use the videos that they watched in their browser. These controlling technologies are called "Digital Rights Management" (DRM), and the W3C's DRM standard is called "Encrypted Media Extensions" (EME).</p>
<p><strong>What is EME for?</strong></p>
<p>That's a good question! The companies that want EME say that they need it to prevent copyright infringement. But long experience with DRM has shown, time and again, that it's just not hard to bypass these systems, and once one person figures out how to do that, they can upload un-DRMed versions of the videos to websites where people who want to violate copyright can go (the host of the Reply All episode explains right at the start that he does this when he can't get DRM to work).</p>
<p>If DRM is about preventing piracy, it's not doing a very good job.</p>
<p><strong>OK, so what <em>is</em> EME for then?</strong></p>
<p>We think the real story here isn't the technology, it's the law.</p>
<p>In 1998, Congress passed the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), which includes an "anti-circumvention" rule that sets out very harsh penalties for tampering with DRM, and is worded so badly and broadly that it has been used to threaten, sue and even jail people who break DRM, even for a lawful reason.</p>
<p>When DRM is deployed, it's never limited solely to preventing people from violating copyright law -- it also stops people from doing things that copyright law permits, but that companies don't like. Companies have all kinds of wishes about how their customers would use their products, but those are just <em>wishes</em>, not law. But when companies use DRM to enforce those wishes, they can turn them into law, because breaking the DRM is against the law.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2016/04/save-netflix">Take Netflix</a>, one of the companies really eager to see DRM added to browsers. Netflix started out by mailing DVDs to its customers, something the movie studios <em>hated</em>. But Netflix bought those DVDs fair and square, and even though the copyright holders behind those discs didn't want Netflix to mail them around, those wishes were not laws, and so Netflix got to grow into the service we all use today.</p>
<p>Today's Netflix has wishes, too: they want to stop you from recording your Netflix streams to watch later, or to move onto other devices. Those are just wishes too -- the same copyright law that makes DVRs and VCRs legal apply to Netflix streams too. But once Netflix uses EME to prevent you from doing this stuff, it can treat its wishes as laws -- and demand that you do the same.</p>
<p><strong>Are you sure this is just about laws?</strong></p>
<p>Pretty sure, yup! Just to double-check, EFF proposed a solution that would cleanly separate the technology from the broad powers that corporations get from DMCA 1201. Under our proposal, W3C members would agree that they could only use DMCA 1201 to stop people from doing something that was already illegal, like movie piracy.</p>
<p>More than 40 W3C members support this proposal, but the companies that want DRM won't hear of it, and last week, the W3C's Director signaled that he wouldn't listen to the members who want this -- rather, he'll let the W3C be turned into an organization where big companies go to get new avenues for legal control, instead of new technologies.</p>
<p><strong>What will EME mean for the web?</strong></p>
<p>Once a company uses DRM in its product, it can threaten anyone who opens up that product in ways they don't like. The exact boundaries of DMCA 1201 are contested, with prosecutors, rightsholders, and some courts arguing for a very expansive scope. Because the penalties for losing a DMCA claim are so scary -- in some commercial circumstances it could mean a $500,000 fine and a 5-year prison sentence for a first offense! -- few people want to operate in the gray area threatened by DMCA 1201.</p>
<p>There are three important groups in the web ecosystem who will lose their rights thanks to EME:</p>
<ol><li>Competitors: these are the intended targets of EME. Companies, free software projects, and individuals who want to let people do more with the videos in their browsers will need permission from the Netflixes of the world in order to develop their tools. It's a first for the W3C: a standard that's designed to <em>stop</em> people from improving the web in lawful ways.</li>
<li>Security whistleblowers: these are an unintended -- but welcome (for some companies) -- target for EME. DRM advocates have said that merely disclosing defects in products that use DRM violates Section 1201 of the DMCA. The thinking goes like this: "When you tell people about the errors we made in designing our products, you also show them where the weak points in our DRM's armor is." Security researchers are routinely stopped from going public when they discover high-risk defects in widely used products because their institutions fear reprisal under DMCA 1201. Rather than protecting the right of these researchers to make truthful statements about defective products, the W3C is <a href="https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2017/02/indefensible-w3c-says-companies-should-get-decide-when-and-how-security">crafting voluntary guidelines</a> to help its members to decide when to censor reports of defects in their products.</li>
<li>People with disabilities: these are also an unintended target of EME. EME includes many adaptations to help those with disabilities enjoy videos, but there are <a href="https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2016/03/interoperability-and-w3c-defending-future-present">plenty of ways this could be improved</a>. Normally, adapting technology to accommodate disabilities is all about writing code, but because these adaptations would require bypassing DRM, accessibility toolsmiths will need to clear a thicket of permissions before they start work (or risk criminal and civil penalties).</li>
</ol><p><strong>Who else feels this way?</strong></p>
<p>Lots of organizations in the W3C and <a href="https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2016/03/security-researchers-tell-w3c-protect-researchers-who-investigate-browsers">hundreds of leading security researchers</a>. The W3C members who've gone on record as supporting EFF's position include:</p>
<ul><li>Accessibility organizations: Royal National Institute of Blind People (UK); Braillenet (France); Vision Australia and Media Access Australia (Australia); Benetech and SSB Bart (USA)</li>
<li>Research institutes: Lawrence Berkeley Labs; Eindhoven, Oxford, Kings College London, Open University, Vrije University</li>
<li>Public interest groups: EFF, Center for Democracy and Technology</li>
<li>Cryptocurrency, blockchain and security groups: Ethereum, Blockstream, White Ops</li>
<li>Commercial firms, webscale projects and browsers: Hypothes.is, Vivliostyle, Brave</li>
</ul><p><strong>Is this just a US problem?</strong></p>
<p>Alas, no: the US Trade Representative has been a busy beaver, convincing almost all of the US's trading partners (with the sole exception of Israel) to adopt rules like this.</p>
<p>But EFF is on the case: we're <a href="https://www.eff.org/press/releases/eff-lawsuit-takes-dmca-section-1201-research-and-technology-restrictions-violate">suing the US government</a> to invalidate section 1201 of the DMCA.</p>
</div></div></div>Fri, 03 Mar 2017 20:21:27 +000095159 at https://www.eff.orgCommentaryDMCADRMFair UseCory DoctorowEFF to Copyright Office: Safe Harbors Workhttps://www.eff.org/pt-br/deeplinks/2017/02/eff-copyright-office-safe-harbors-work
<div class="field field--name-body field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden"><div class="field__items"><div class="field__item even"><p class="MsoNormal">The “notice-and-takedown” process for addressing online copyright infringement isn’t perfect: it’s often abused to remove lawful speech from the Internet. But it many cases this process, described in Section 512 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), works pretty well—particularly because of the safe harbors that protect Internet services that comply with the law. That’s why it’s so frustrating that major media and entertainment companies are still pushing the Copyright Office to recommend throwing away the safe harbors and instead order Internet platforms to filter users’ communications.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The Copyright Office’s study started in early 2016. EFF first submitted <a href="https://www.eff.org/document/eff-512-study-comments">comments</a> in April of that year, explaining that any tweaks to Section 512 should focus on protecting Internet speech and creativity for all of us. The safe harbors help protect the Internet as a viable and accessible platform for free expression and innovation, ensuring that online platforms are encouraged to experiment with new forms of communication and connection without threat of costly legal action. That unfettered experimentation creates new ways for everyone to share and comment and create art without undue copyright claims resulting in the removal, blocking, or filtering of content from Internet services.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The study is ongoing, and EFF submitted reply <a href="https://www.eff.org/document/reply-comments-0">comments</a> Tuesday reinforcing these arguments. But of course, in the last year we’ve seen a lot of submissions featuring the hysteria of major entertainment companies and their grab for more control. These copyright holders claim that more onerous processes, like mandatory filtering, are needed to make sure that Internet platforms and their users stop acting out. In short, many copyright holders would prefer to sacrifice your voice or the next fun social media product you might like to use in exchange for even more dangerous private policing of the Internet.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">So while 512 could be implemented more fairly to users and innovators, it’s hard to escape the thought that this study is only treading well-worn ground, allowing Big Content to continue pushing a filter-everything approach.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The Copyright Office is working on other reviews of the law that could be more meaningful in the long run. The office is looking into Section 1201 of the DMCA—a provision that is blatantly unconstitutional. The anti-circumvention provisions of Section 1201 block your ability to access, use, or even discuss copyrighted materials if they are protected by digital rights management software. We are working on a <a href="https://www.eff.org/cases/green-v-us-department-justice">lawsuit challenging Section 1201</a> because of the damage that it does, and we wish the Copyright Office would focus its attention there.</p>
</div></div></div><div class="field field--name-field-related-cases field--type-node-reference field--label-above"><div class="field__label">Related Cases:&nbsp;</div><div class="field__items"><div class="field__item even"><a href="/pt-br/cases/copyright-office-section-512-study">Copyright Office Section 512 study</a></div></div></div>Wed, 22 Feb 2017 20:10:30 +000095010 at https://www.eff.orgDMCARebecca JeschkeYODA, the Bill That Would Let You Own (and Sell) Your Devices, Is Re-Introduced in Congresshttps://www.eff.org/pt-br/deeplinks/2017/02/yoda-bill-would-let-you-own-and-sell-your-devices-re-introduced-congress
<div class="field field--name-body field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden"><div class="field__items"><div class="field__item even"><p>Rep. Blake Farenthold (R-Texas) and Jared Polis (D-Colo.) just <a href="http://farenthold.house.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx?DocumentID=399906">re-introduced</a> their You Own Devices Act (YODA), a bill that aims to help you reclaim some of your ownership rights in the software-enabled devices you buy.</p>
<p>We first wrote about YODA when it was <a href="https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2014/09/bill-introduced-congress-let-you-actually-own-things-even-if-they-contain-software">originally introduced back in 2014</a>. The bill would go a ways toward curbing abusive End User License Agreements (EULAs) by making sure companies can’t use restrictions on the software within your device to keep you from selling, leasing, or giving away the device when you’re done with it by. The bill would override EULAs that purport to limit your ability to transfer ownership of the device (and its software) and would make sure that whoever ends up with your device has the same access to security and bug fixes that you would have had.</p>
<p>Making sure that you can sell and transfer your old devices isn’t just good for you – it’s good for everyone else as well. Resale markets for consumer products help <a href="http://scholarship.law.berkeley.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2246&amp;context=facpubs">improve access to affordable technology and provide a valuable resource for innovators</a> [PDF].</p>
<p>We’re pleased to see some members of Congress tackling this issue, and there’s still a long way to go to make sure that outdated and <a href="https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2016/07/section-1201-dmca-cannot-pass-constitutional-scrutiny">unconstitutional</a> copyright laws, like Section 1201, don’t keep you from controlling your own media and devices.</p>
</div></div></div>Wed, 08 Feb 2017 03:53:49 +000094896 at https://www.eff.orgFair UseDefend Your Right to Repair!DMCADMCA RulemakingTerms Of (Ab)UseKerry SheehanIndefensible: The W3C says companies should get to decide when and how security researchers reveal defects in browsershttps://www.eff.org/pt-br/node/94796
<div class="field field--name-body field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden"><div class="field__items"><div class="field__item even"><p>The World Wide Web Consortium has just signaled its intention to deliberately create legal jeopardy for security researchers who reveal defects in its members' products, unless the security researchers get the approval of its members prior to revealing the embarrassing mistakes those members have made in creating their products. It's a move that will put literally billions of people at risk as researchers are chilled from investigating and publishing on browsers that follow W3C standards.</p>
<p>It is indefensible.</p>
<p>When the W3C embarked on its plan to create a standardized DRM system for video on the World Wide Web, <a href="https://www.eff.org/press/releases/eff-makes-formal-objection-drm-html5">EFF told them</a> it was a bad idea, pointing out that such a system could be covered under Section 1201 of the DMCA, which provides for criminal and civil penalties for people who tamper with DRM, even for legitimate purposes, including security disclosures, accessibility adaptation for people with disabilities, and making innovative, competitive products and services (almost every other country has its own version of this law).</p>
<p>The W3C told us that they were only concerned with the technological dimension of the work, not the legal ones -- if the problem was the DMCA, we should do something about the DMCA (<a href="https://www.eff.org/press/releases/eff-lawsuit-takes-dmca-section-1201-research-and-technology-restrictions-violate">we are</a>).</p>
<p>But the W3C has a tried-and-true method for resolving conflicts between open standards and technology law. In the W3C's earliest days, it wrestled with the question of software patents, and whether to allow its members to assert patents over the standards they were creating. In the end, the W3C became an open standardization trailblazer: it formulated a <a href="https://www.w3.org/Consortium/Patent/">patent policy</a> that required its members to surrender the right to invoke their patents in lawsuits as a condition of participating in the W3C process. It was a brilliant move, and it made the W3C the premier standards body for the web.</p>
<p>We proposed that the W3C should extend this existing policy to cover the world's DRM laws. We <a href="https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2016/03/drm-non-aggression-table-w3c">suggested that W3C members should have to surrender their DMCA 1201 rights</a>, making legally binding promises not to use DRM law to attack security researchers, technologists adapting browsers for disabled people, and innovative new entrants to the market.</p>
<p>This proposal has picked up steam. <a href="https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2016/03/security-researchers-tell-w3c-protect-researchers-who-investigate-browsers">Hundreds of security researchers have endorsed it</a>, as have <a href="https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2016/11/world-wide-web-consortium-crossroads-arms-dealers-or-standards-setters">dozens of W3C members</a>, from leading research institutions like Eindhoven, Oxford and Lawrence Berkeley Labs to leading nonprofits that work for disabled people, like the UK's Royal National Institute for Blind People, Vision Australia, Braillenet in France, and Benetech in the USA; and browser vendors like Brave and cryptocurrency companies like Ethereum. This measure has also been integrated into <a href="https://opensource.org/osr-drm">the leading definition of an "open standard."</a></p>
<p>But last weekend, the <a href="https://www.w3.org/2017/01/GVDP-factsheet.html">W3C signalled that it would ignore all of these concerns</a>, and instead embrace and extend the legal encumbrances created by its DRM work, creating a parallel working group that would develop "voluntary guidelines" for its members to employ when deciding whether to use the legal rights the W3C has created for them with EME to silence security researchers.</p>
<p>Companies can and should develop bug bounty programs and other ways to work with the security community, but there's a difference between companies being able to say, "We think you should disclose our bugs in this way," and "Do it our way or we'll sue."</p>
<p>Under almost every circumstance in almost every country, true facts about defects in products are always lawful to disclose. No one -- especially not the companies involved -- gets to dictate to security researchers, product reviewers and users when and how they can discuss mistakes that manufacturers have made. Security facts, like most facts, should be legal to talk about, even if they make companies unhappy.</p>
<p>By its own admission, the W3C did not set out to create a legal weapon that would give companies the unheard-of power to force silence upon security researchers who have discovered critical flaws in products we all entrust with our financial details, personal conversations, legal and medical information, and control over our cameras and microphones.</p>
<p>Considered separately from DRM standardization, this new project would be most welcome. The W3C is just the sort of place where we'd like to see best practices guidelines for offering incentives to use managed disclosure processes.</p>
<p>But in creating a DRM standard, the W3C has opted to codify and reinforce the legal weaponization of DRM law, rather than dismantling it. Bad enough that the W3C has summarily dismissed the concerns of new entrants into the browser market and organizations that provide access to disabled people -- but in the case of security concerns, they've gone even further. When it comes to security concerns, the W3C has departed from the technological standards business to become legal arms dealers.</p>
<p>We at EFF call on the W3C to reconvene its earlier negotiations to defang the legal consequences of its DRM work, and in so doing to transform its security disclosure work from a weapon to a normative guideline. It's one thing to help companies figure out how to make an attractive offer to the researchers who investigate browser security, but it's another thing altogether to standardize browser technology that empowers companies to sue the researchers who decline to take them up on the offer.</p>
</div></div></div>Wed, 01 Feb 2017 20:40:39 +000094796 at https://www.eff.orgCommentaryDRMDMCACory DoctorowWon't someone please think of the bikers?https://www.eff.org/pt-br/node/94701
<div class="field field--name-body field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden"><div class="field__items"><div class="field__item even"><p>If there's anything more remarkable than the fact that <a href="https://motherboard.vice.com/read/five-states-are-considering-bills-to-legalize-the-right-to-repair-electronics">five states are debating "Right to Repair" bills</a> that make it legal for you to fix your own property, it's that these bills are needed in the first place. Can it really be true that you aren't allowed choose how to configure, repair, and service the things you own?</p>
<p>Weirdly enough, the answer is yes. Section 1201 of the 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act makes it unlawful to tamper with software locks that control access to copyrighted works—more commonly known as "Digital Rights Management" or DRM. As the number of products with software in them has exploded, the manufacturers of these products have figured out that they can force their customers to use their own property in ways that benefit the company's shareholders, not customers. All they have to do is design those products so that using them in other ways requires breaking some DRM, then invoke the DMCA to stop anyone from using products in unapproved ways.</p>
<p>The conversion of companies' commercial preferences into legally enforceable rights has been especially devastating to the repair sector, a huge slice of the US economy, as much as 4% of GDP, composed mostly of small mom-n-pop storefront operations that create jobs right in local communities, because repair is a local business. No one wants to send their car, or even their phone, to China or India for servicing.</p>
<p>Ironically, China is one of the places where a lot of busted phones get sent, but not so that they can be fixed for their owners. Rather, the manufacturer-imposed limits on repair makes it so uneconomical to fix these devices that they're sold as ewaste, shipped in bulk to China, and refurbished there, creating jobs and value for that economy, taking it away from the US economy, and requiring US residents to waste money replacing devices that could be fixed and put back in their pockets.</p>
<p>But even though Congress has failed to act to check this disastrous unintended consequence of DMCA 1201, the states aren't taking it lying down. Following on the 2012 passage of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massachusetts_Right_to_Repair_Initiative">right to repair law for cars in Massachusetts<em></em></a>, that state, plus Nebraska, Minnesota, New York, and Kansas, are all debating broader legislation covering digital products that tries to counter anti-repair laws like DMCA 1201 by requiring companies to take steps to make it easier to independently service your property: steps like publishing service manuals and making spare parts available. We at EFF also <a href="https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2016/10/why-did-we-have-wait-year-fix-our-cars">fought for and won</a> a two-year exemption to DMCA 1201 that lets people repair and tinker with their own vehicles, including motorcycles (though unfortunately the government refused to allow mechanics to do so on a customer's behalf).</p>
<p>The manufacturers that would like to control these aftermarkets are none too pleased with legal recognition of customers' rights to repair. In Nebraska, industry associations representing the manufacturers of motorcycles, off-road vehicles, and specialty vehicles have <a hregf="https://www.eff.org/document/ne-l-67-comments-motorcycle-industry-council-et-al">written to The Honorable Lydia Brasch</a>, State Senator for District 16, asking her to amend <a href="http://nebraskalegislature.gov/FloorDocs/105/PDF/Intro/LB67.pdf">The Fair Repair Act</a> so that the act of fixing, tinkering with, or modifying your own motorcycle or ATV remains as hard as possible.</p>
<p>The manufacturers argue that "non-factory trained technicians, untrained mechanics and owners" can't safely maintain motorcycles, and that allowing anyone except manufacturer-approved technicians to tinker with bikes, trikes, and ATVs is a risk to the "safety of the customer."</p>
<p>There's no disputing that bad repairs are dangerous, and that's true whether we're talking about toasters, light-switches, plumbing, or motorcycles. If a repair shop botches your toaster repair and your house burns down, you might be able to sue them for negligence. But the law doesn't ban third party technicians from fixing your toaster, it doesn't ban you from fixing your own pipes, and it most certainly shouldn't ban motorcycle owners and mechanics from fixing and modifying bikes.</p>
<p>Indeed, motorcycle owners have a proud tradition of improving on and fixing their own bikes that's as old as motorcycles themselves. As the <a href="https://www.revzilla.com/common-tread/will-the-government-make-working-on-your-vehicle-illegal">gearheads at Revzilla</a> note:</p>
<blockquote><p>In this day and age, finding a trusted mechanic to work on our bikes is becoming more of a challenge. They are being replaced by underpaid “parts swappers” as dealers try to save money by cutting costs. Some of the best mechanics I know are the ones operating in the back alley garages in America, keeping the American Dream alive and well while covered in grease and drenched in gasoline fumes. Will this push more of them out of business? How badly will this hurt companies that make aftermarket tuning products?</p>
<p>And what about those of us who simply like to work on our own bikes? Tinkering with fuel maps and blocking off secondary air injection ports to try to gain better performance. Always seeking some way to improve our machines, we understand and accept the inherent dangers we face if we make a modification that affects the safety of our machine. Of course there are potential dangers with working on our own machines, but those are risks we are willing to take. Motorcycles are inherently dangerous and we accept that.</p></blockquote>
<p>Congress never banned fixing your own bike, but the sloppy drafting of DMCA 1201 left a loophole you could drive a motorcycle through, one we could only partially fix via the DMCA 1201 rulemaking process. This defect in the law gives manufacturers a tool to corner the market on service and repairs, and it's easy to see why they'd be upset at the prospect of having to give up some of their powers to boss their customers around.</p>
<p>We hope Senator Brasch will see this "Won't someone please think of the bikers?" rhetoric for what it is: a naked bid to get the taxpayers to enforce the manufacturers' business models, at the expense of their customers.</p>
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</div></div></div><div class="field field--name-field-related-cases field--type-node-reference field--label-above"><div class="field__label">Related Cases:&nbsp;</div><div class="field__items"><div class="field__item even"><a href="/pt-br/cases/2015-dmca-rulemaking">2015 DMCA Rulemaking</a></div></div></div>Mon, 23 Jan 2017 19:38:52 +000094701 at https://www.eff.orgCommentaryDRMDMCADefend Your Right to Repair!Cory DoctorowEFF to Court: Protect Free Speech From Overbroad Use of DMCAhttps://www.eff.org/pt-br/deeplinks/2017/01/eff-ninth-circuit-protect-free-speech-overbroad-dmca
<div class="field field--name-body field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden"><div class="field__items"><div class="field__item even"><p>In order to make remix videos, do computer research, or make e-books accessible, people often need to bypass access controls on the media they own. This week, EFF explained to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit that the government cannot prohibit such speech without running afoul of the First Amendment, in a <a href="https://www.eff.org/document/vidangel-v-disney-eff-amicus">friend-of-the-court brief</a> filed in the case of <em>VidAngel v. Disney</em>. </p>
<p>VidAngel provides a service that allows customers to view movies minus the parts it identifies as offensive. Disney and other entertainment companies, including Fox and Warner Brothers, argued that providing this service violates copyright law and the related law against bypassing access controls in Section 1201 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.</p>
<p>Importantly, they argue that the service involves circumvention of the access controls on DVDs, and that VidAngel could be liable for this violation even if its service were held to entail fair use and thus did not infringe copyright. This is an issue that the Ninth Circuit has previously left unresolved, and on which other federal appeals courts disagree.</p>
<p>We filed to ensure the Ninth Circuit understands the impact on speech of an anti-circumvention law that does not include flexible accommodations for free speech, like a fair use exemption. This is an issue we are also directly litigating in the District of Columbia, where we await a ruling in our <em><a href="https://www.eff.org/cases/green-v-us-department-justice">Green v. Department of Justice</a></em> lawsuit.</p>
<p>After almost <a href="https://www.eff.org/wp/unintended-consequences-16-years-under-dmca">20 years of speech repression</a>, it is past time to remedy the defects in Section 1201 of the DMCA, and we hope 2017 will be the year that finally happens.</p>
</div></div></div><div class="field field--name-field-related-cases field--type-node-reference field--label-above"><div class="field__label">Related Cases:&nbsp;</div><div class="field__items"><div class="field__item even"><a href="/pt-br/cases/green-v-us-department-justice">Green v. U.S. Department of Justice</a></div></div></div>Thu, 19 Jan 2017 23:08:06 +000094647 at https://www.eff.orgNews UpdateFair UseDMCAKit WalshHollywood Doesn’t Represent All Creatorshttps://www.eff.org/pt-br/deeplinks/2017/01/hollywood-doesnt-represent-all-creators
<div class="field field--name-body field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden"><div class="field__items"><div class="field__item even"><p><i><img src="/files/2017/01/19/og-copyrightweek_0.png" alt="" height="300" width="650" /></i></p>
<p><i>We're taking part in <a href="https://www.eff.org/copyrightweek">Copyright Week</a>, a series of actions and discussions supporting key principles that should guide copyright policy. Every day this week, various groups are taking on different elements of the law, and addressing what's at stake, and what we need to do to make sure that copyright promotes creativity and innovation.</i></p>
<p>One of the biggest pitfalls in copyright policymaking is to treat creators of copyrighted content as a monolithic entity with identical interests and concerns. When massive entertainment companies ask for dangerous new types of copyright protection, they imply that all artists share the same set of interests (which allegedly line up with those of the big companies themselves). It would be a mistake even to accept the entertainment industry’s interpretation of the will of the artists <i>it represents</i>, let alone extend it to the community of artists in general. Copyright should take into account the needs of artists and creators of all stripes, reflecting the differences among their tactics, their goals, their business models, and how they go about creating new works.</p>
<p>The conflict over copyright between Hollywood and independent artists is perhaps nowhere more pronounced than in the debate over automatic copyright filtering on YouTube and sites like it. Video creators rely on fair use protections every day—especially if their work involves quoting or sampling others’ content for the purposes of criticism, journalism, or education, uses that are protected under the law.</p>
<p>Last year, video creators <a href="https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2016/02/content-id-and-rise-machines">organized to protest YouTube’s copyright policies</a>—they argued that fear of Content ID takedowns (and of having to navigate YouTube’s arcane repeat infringer system) effectively chilled YouTube artists’ free expression. As popular YouTube personality Doug Walker put it, “I’ve been doing this professionally for over eight years, and I have never had a day where I felt safe posting one of my videos even though <i>the law states I should be safe posting one of my videos</i>.”</p>
<p>YouTubers were successful in convincing Google to <a href="https://youtube-creators.googleblog.com/2016/04/improving-content-id-for-creators.html">make some small but important policy changes</a> (namely, allowing videos to earn revenue while under a copyright dispute, thus ensuring that a bogus dispute doesn’t cut off a creator’s revenue stream), but that victory could be tiny compared to the fight that’s on the horizon.</p>
<p>The RIAA and a host of other entertainment industry groups <a href="https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2016/12/its-same-old-song-big-content-pushes-expanded-copyright-powers">recently wrote a memo to President-Elect Trump</a> asking for a major overhaul of the safe harbors system in the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). Safe harbors protect web platforms that host third-party content from liability for their users’ allegedly infringing content. Without safe harbors, many popular media platforms would look very different from how they look today, or they simply wouldn’t exist.</p>
<p>Although it didn’t make specific demands, the RIAA memo eerily echoes a number of proposals that Hollywood lobbyists have made for weakening safe harbor protections. One such proposal is a <a href="https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2016/01/notice-and-stay-down-really-filter-everything">filter-everything approach</a>: under filter-everything, websites that host third-party content would be required to run Content ID-style copyright bots. Once a takedown notice went uncontested, the platform would have to block <i>any future uploads of the same allegedly infringing content</i>. Proposals like filter-everything inevitably shift the burden of policing copyright infringement (or at least some of that burden) from copyright owners to the web platforms themselves. In doing so, they effectively incentivize platforms to give copyright owners the upper hand in any dispute. Moreover, legally mandated filters could compromise fair use. <a href="https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2016/02/content-id-and-rise-machines">As we’ve said before</a>, copyright bots can be a helpful tool, but they’re no substitute for human analysis.</p>
<p>Ultimately, when big content companies demand <a href="https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2016/12/music-industry-shouldnt-be-able-cut-your-internet-access">weaker users’ rights</a> or <a href="https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2016/07/more-copyright-law-less-copyright-infringement">brand new types of copyright protection</a>, they make a crucial miscalculation. They assume that their large budgets earn them super-copyright powers—that is, that lawmakers must protect their rights to the detriment of other creators, users, and platforms because their content is so expensive to produce. It doesn’t work that way. As <a href="https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20160915/07531635524/former-umg-exec-major-label-music-should-cost-more-dmca-safe-harbors-should-be-destroyed.shtml">Tim Cushing pointed out</a>, Hollywood’s logic would suggest that a ticket to <i>Avatar</i> should cost 90,000 times more than a ticket to <i>Paranormal Activity</i>.</p>
<p>Independent creators of all types can play an essential role in pushing for fairness in copyright law. Lawmakers need to balance the needs and rights of everyone, including small creators and users. When entertainment companies claim to represent the will of artists, Congress hears only a fraction of the story.</p>
</div></div></div>Thu, 19 Jan 2017 22:23:09 +000094638 at https://www.eff.orgCommentaryFair UseDMCAElliot HarmonThe Year We Went on Offense Against DRM: 2016 in Reviewhttps://www.eff.org/pt-br/node/94253
<div class="field field--name-body field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden"><div class="field__items"><div class="field__item even"><p>A decade ago, DRM seemed like it was on the ropes: it had disappeared from music, most video was being served DRM-free by YouTube and its competitors, and gamers were united in their hatred of the technology. But by 2016, DRM had come roaring back, finding its way into voting machines, insulin pumps, and car engines.</p>
<p>Like all invasive species, DRM is hardy, and in the years since the mid-2000s, it has gone on to colonize nearly every category of software-enabled device, from thermostats to voting machines to cars and tractors to insulin pumps. Companies have worked out that since section 1201 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act provides penalties for breaking DRM, they can simply design their products so that using them in ways that the manufacturer dislikes requires breaking DRM first, and then they can claim that using your property in ways that displease the company that made it is a literal felony.</p>
<p>Companies use DRM to force you to pay extra for repairs at their authorized service centers, or to buy their official consumables—everything from printer ink to detergent for automated cat-litter boxes—or to control which software will run on your device, forcing you to download only from an official, controlled "app store."</p>
<p>Every business has a mix of legal rights—like Netflix's right against infringing distribution of its videos—and commercial preferences—like Netflix's wish that you will only use its "offline viewer" to watch videos later, and not a third-party recorder that lets you take your videos on any device of your choosing. By adding DRM to their products, companies can convert those commercial preferences into legal rights—they can claim that it's illegal to arrange your affairs in ways that are suboptimal for their investors.</p>
<p>Worst of all, companies claim that basic security research—finding and disclosing defects in products that threaten their users' safety and privacy—is also a violation of the law against breaking DRM. If you know about a defect in a product, you might be able to exploit that knowledge to figure out how to get around the DRM.</p>
<p>Yeesh.</p>
<p>In 2015, the U.S. Copyright Office held its regularly scheduled triennial hearing about DMCA 1201, and the world's top security researchers described the bewildering constellation of devices they've discovered to be unfit for service, but whose defects they cannot disclose because of the DMCA. The result was a set of short-lived, symbolic—but nonetheless vindicating—exemptions to DMCA 1201, and in 2016 we've built on that victory, and we're going to kill all the DRM in the world, forever.</p>
<p>We're fighting DRM on many fronts. We've built an unprecedented coalition to <a href="https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2016/11/world-wide-web-consortium-crossroads-arms-dealers-or-standards-setters">beat back DRM in the core standards for the Web</a>, we're using consumer regulations to <a href="https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2016/08/drm-you-have-right-know-what-youre-buying">push for DRM labeling</a> on products, and building coalitions with security researchers, entrepreneurs, service and repair professionals, and international groups involved in this fight.</p>
<p>It all comes under the banner of a project called <a href="https://www.eff.org/press/releases/cory-doctorow-rejoins-eff-eradicate-drm-everywhere">Apollo 1201</a>, whose mission is to end all the DRM in the world in a decade.</p>
<p>We're in the right time at the right place. Some 20,000 EFF supporters <a href="https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2016/09/hps-run-keep-pressure">signed our letter to Hewlett-Packard</a> after the company pushed a fake "security update" that actually turned on DRM used to force printer owners to buy HP ink. These were the leading edge of a massive wave of people who are figuring out that their toaster is one next-generation computer vision system away from rejecting unauthorized bread and their dishwashers need only a simple RFID reader to begin rejecting third-party dishes.</p>
<p>The good news is that DRM is such a disaster in so many ways—so bad for consumer rights, so bad for innovation, so bad for security—that the coming opposition will come from many fronts, and we'll be there, leading the charge.</p>
<p>This article is part of our Year In Review series. <a href="https://www.eff.org/2016-year-review-digital-rights">Read other articles about the fight for digital rights in 2016.</a></p>
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</div></div></div>Sun, 01 Jan 2017 19:31:41 +000094253 at https://www.eff.orgDMCACory DoctorowThis Year in U.S. Copyright Policy: 2016 in Reviewhttps://www.eff.org/pt-br/deeplinks/2016/12/year-us-copyright-policy-2016-review
<div class="field field--name-body field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden"><div class="field__items"><div class="field__item even"><p class="normal">Three years into Congress's copyright review and it's still more talk than action.</p>
<p class="normal">The talk: at the start of the year, the Commerce Department released its<a href="https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2016/01/commerce-department-has-good-recommendations-fixing-copyright-law-more-needed"> long-awaited recommendations</a> for <a href="https://www.eff.org/document/doc-whitepaper-copyright">copyright reform</a>, and in the spring, the Copyright Office moved forward with <a href="https://www.eff.org/document/section-512-study-notice-inquiry">three</a> <a href="https://copyright.gov/fedreg/2015/80fr81369.pdf">major</a> copyright policy <a href="https://copyright.gov/fedreg/2015/80fr77668.pdf">studies</a>. President Obama sent <a href="https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2016/02/tale-two-treaties-marrakesh-and-beijing-both-make-their-way-senate">two international copyright treaties</a> to the Senate for ratification, and the White House called for more <a href="https://eff.org/issues/shadow-regulation">shadow regulation</a>. </p>
<p class="normal">The action: there were high-profile personnel changes at both the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/sep/15/carla-hayden-librarian-congress-first-woman-african-american-post-interview">Library of Congress</a> and the <a href="https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20161024/14573835875/shake-up-copyright-office-possible-preview-to-fight-over-copyright-reform.shtml">Copyright Office</a>, the Copyright Office made a <a href="https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2016/11/copyright-office-sets-trap-unwary-website-owners">dangerous new rule</a> for website owners, and some <a href="https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2016/10/why-did-we-have-wait-year-fix-our-cars">anti-circumvention exemptions</a> came into effect.</p>
<p class="normal">We still don’t know whether any big changes to copyright law are imminent, but 2016 sure set the table for an interesting 2017. </p>
<p class="normal"><b>Three years into the “Next Great Copyright Act” review process</b></p>
<p class="normal">2016 marked the <a href="https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2016/01/copyright-week-2016-making-copyright-work-public">third year</a> in Congress’ review of U.S. copyright law – a process that began in 2013 when then-Register of Copyrights Maria Pallante called on Congress to overhaul copyright law in “<a href="https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/12/next-great-copyright-act">The Next Great Copyright Act.”</a> This year, that <a href="https://www.eff.org/issues/2013-copyright-review-process">review</a> continued to move forward, with the Copyright Office undertaking three policy studies on contested areas of copyright law. While copyright law has long been shaped by a few powerful industries, EFF is working to make sure that if Congress proposes further changes to the law, <a href="https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2016/01/copyright-week-2016-making-copyright-work-public">the public won't be left out</a> of the process.</p>
<p class="normal"><b>Fighting for your freedom to tinker</b></p>
<p class="normal">EFF kicked off 2016 by <a href="https://www.regulations.gov/document?D=COLC-2015-0012-0058">urging</a> the Copyright Office to <a href="https://www.regulations.gov/document?D=COLC-2015-0012-0082">make sure</a> that its recommendations to Congress protect users’ ability to <a href="https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2016/01/why-owning-your-stuff-means-owning-your-digital-freedom">truly own their own devices</a> – to use, tinker with, modify, repair and sell the software-enabled products that are commonplace in our daily lives. EFF encouraged the Copyright Office to support changes to the law that would <a href="https://www.regulations.gov/document?D=COLC-2015-0011-0009">fix major problems</a> with how the law treats software, to reform the broken process the Office uses to grant limited exceptions to the DMCA’s blanket prohibition on DRM circumvention, and to support real reform of Section 1201’s <a href="https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2016/07/section-1201-dmca-cannot-pass-constitutional-scrutiny">unconstitutional</a> limits on users’ freedom of expression. And this fall, EFF and <a href="https://www.eff.org/press/releases/eff-copyright-office-its-time-real-reform-dmca-1201">11,000 supporters</a> urged the Copyright Office to support strong, <a href="https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2016/10/tell-copyright-office-copyright-law-shouldnt-punish-research-and-repair">meaningful permanent exemptions</a> from liability under 1201 for security research, repair, and accessibility.</p>
<p class="normal">The Copyright Office released the results of its study on software-enabled consumer devices on December 15 (the 1201 study is ongoing as of publication) and it's clear they failed to adopt the proposals suggested by EFF and other public interest groups. We’re disappointed that the Copyright Office missed an opportunity to support reforms that would benefit the public, but we’ll keep up the fight in 2017, in Congress and <a href="https://www.eff.org/press/releases/eff-lawsuit-takes-dmca-section-1201-research-and-technology-restrictions-violate">in the courts</a>, for a copyright law that makes sense for today’s software-driven world. </p>
<p class="normal"><b>Security research and vehicle repair exemptions take effect</b></p>
<p class="normal">The Librarian of Congress’ Section 1201 exemptions for security research and vehicle repair finally came into effect in October. Unlike the other exemptions issued in 2015, the rules for security research and vehicle repair were (<a href="https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2016/10/why-did-we-have-wait-year-fix-our-cars">unlawfully, unnecessarily</a>) delayed by a full year. The exemption gives people some protection against legal threats when they repair, modify, or tinker with their vehicle, or perform security research on consumer devices - including medical devices and vehicles - at least until the next rulemaking period.</p>
<p class="normal"><b>Preserving critical Internet safe harbors</b></p>
<p class="normal">EFF also <a href="https://www.eff.org/document/eff-512-study-comments">urged</a> the Copyright Office to protect safe harbors for online intermediaries in the Office’s study on Section 512 of the DMCA. Those safe harbors have allowed the Internet to develop as a platform for innovation and free expression and provide crucially important protections for users. Without them, users’ ability to freely express themselves online, to share ideas, information, and to create and innovate would be severely curtailed. EFF advised the Copyright Office against adopting entertainment industry-backed recommendations to undermine those safe harbors by requiring service providers to monitor or filter online content.</p>
<p class="normal">At the same time, EFF <a href="https://www.eff.org/press/releases/eff-copyright-office-improper-content-takedowns-hurt-online-free-expression">educated</a> the Copyright Office on how abuse of the DMCA’s notice and takedown process harms users and keeps important speech offline. We outlined steps the office should take to prevent those abuses and protect users from bogus takedowns. That study is ongoing. </p>
<p class="normal">Under <a href="https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2016/06/eff-tells-copyright-office-no-new-barriers-dmca-safe-harbors">protest</a> from EFF and a broad coalition of public interest groups, library associations and industry groups, the Copyright Office moved forward with an ill-advised <a href="https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2016/11/copyright-office-sets-trap-unwary-website-owners">new rule</a> that could undermine safe harbors for millions of service providers. The rule, which went into effect in December, requires all Internet services, including websites that host user-posted content, to renew their DMCA agent registrations every three years, or risk losing the safe harbor’s protections against copyright liability. Internet services now have until December 31, 2017 to re-register. </p>
<p class="normal"><b>The Copyright Office is in a library for a reason</b></p>
<p class="normal">Over the last two years we’ve seen <a href="https://marino.house.gov/media-center/press-releases/reps-marino-chu-introduce-landmark-copyright-reform">a couple</a> of high-profile, entertainment industry-backed <a href="https://judiciary.house.gov/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/Copyright-Reform.pdf">proposals</a> to "<a href="https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2015/07/copyright-office-belongs-library">yank the Copyright Office out of the Library"</a> of Congress, where it’s been since 1870. These proposals have only gained momentum after the public resignation of Register Maria Pallante. But as Public Knowledge explained in its <a href="https://www.publicknowledge.org/documents/captured-systemic-bias-at-the-u.s.-copyright-office-1">blistering report</a> on the agency, the Copyright Office displays a bias towards the entertainment industries. Why should we give an agency that’s already shown itself vulnerable to industry capture more of an opportunity to cater to those interests, with even less oversight? Like copyright law, the Copyright Office should serve the public as a whole, not just the entertainment industries. As <a href="https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2015/07/copyright-office-belongs-library">we’ve said before</a>, we think it’s best able to do so under the guidance of someone dedicated to promoting the public’s access to knowledge and culture – a librarian.</p>
<p class="normal"><b>The U.S. dawdles in ratifying Marrakesh, and there’s still time to halt Beijing</b></p>
<p class="normal">Beyond the purely domestic, President Obama sent <a href="https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2016/02/tale-two-treaties-marrakesh-and-beijing-both-make-their-way-senate">two international copyright treaties</a> to the U.S. Senate for ratification in February. Depending on whether and how they’re implemented, those treaties could affect U.S. copyright law.</p>
<p class="normal">The first, the <a href="http://www.wipo.int/treaties/en/ip/marrakesh/">Marrakesh Treaty</a> to Facilitate Access to Published Works by Visually Impaired Persons and Persons With Print Disabilities, reached its ratification threshold and <a href="https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2016/06/canadas-entry-treaty-blind-will-come-force">came into effect</a> for countries that had ratified it in June. The United States is not yet one of these. The treaty requires member countries to adopt broad exceptions to copyright law for print-disabled persons, and makes it legal to import and export accessible works without the need to seek permission from the copyright holders. Overly restrictive copyright laws around the world have contributed to a shortage of works in accessible formats. The Marrakesh treaty is a significant step in improving print-disabled persons’ access to accessible books, and there is no excuse for Congress to delay any further in ratifying it.</p>
<p class="normal">The Senate has also not yet ratified the second treaty, the <a href="http://www.wipo.int/treaties/en/ip/beijing/">Beijing Treaty</a> on Audiovisual Performances. If ratified, this treaty could grant new copyright-like rights to performers—including not only actors, musicians, and dancers, but a potentially broad swath of loosely defined performers—that allow them to restrict access to their performances for decades into the future. This could have serious consequences for journalists, musicians, artists, and anyone who wants to capture and repurpose documentation of live events. EFF and our supporters <a href="https://act.eff.org/action/tell-congress-no-beijing-veto-on-video-speech">urged the Senate</a> not to ratify Beijing, and to reject the USPTO’s <a href="https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2016/04/another-fine-mess-ustr-has-gotten-us-misguided-plan-expand-performers-rights">even more extensive</a> implementation proposal. In 2017 the Senate will have another chance; it’s not too late to <a href="https://act.eff.org/action/tell-congress-no-beijing-veto-on-video-speech">tell your member of Congress</a> to reject the USPTO’s proposal and refuse to ratify the treaty.</p>
<p class="normal"><b>The White House “IP Czar” gives the nod to shadow regulation</b></p>
<p class="normal">Shadow regulation, the attempt by private companies and government officials to regulate the Internet using secretive, backroom agreements, earned a ringing endorsement from the Obama administration at the end of the year. The U.S. Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator (IPEC)—an office inside the White House tasked with developing the administration’s intellectual property enforcement policy—released its new <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/omb/IPEC/2016jointstrategicplan.pdf">Joint Strategic Plan </a>[PDF] in December. While it acknowledges the importance of limitations and exceptions to copyright, including fair use, the report commends existing agreements, like <a href="https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2016/02/mpaa-may-donuts-they-shouldnt-be-copyright-police">this one</a> between the MPAA and domain name registries, and calls for increased participation across sectors of Internet services. <a href="https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2016/12/not-so-voluntary-white-house-ip-czar-promotes-shadow-regulation-internet">As we’ve said before</a>, these agreements place substantial power over users’ online behavior in the hands of a few powerful companies, and create opportunities for abuse. They’re especially problematic when government officials encourage such agreements as a way of bypassing normal democratic processes. If the federal government is supporting these agreements, then it should make sure they adequately protect their users’ rights and are accountable to those users.</p>
<p class="normal">After Congress’s listening tour in 2015 and several rounds of comments and public roundtables with the Copyright Office, there’s still little to show in terms of concrete legislative proposals for the “Next Great Copyright Act.” But the entertainment and content industries <a href="https://www.riaa.com/music-community-letter-president-elect-trump-eve-meeting-tech-leaders/">haven’t</a> <a href="http://newsroom.publishers.org/aap-letter-to-president-elect-donald-trump">let</a> <a href="https://copyright-alliance.rallycongress.net/ctas/open-letter-to-2016-political-candidates/petition">up</a> in their pursuit of more draconian copyright laws, and there’s a risk that the copyright reform process could really go off the rails in 2017. If it does, we’ll all need to be ready to let Congress know how powerful Internet users really are. </p>
<p>This article is part of our Year In Review series. <a href="https://www.eff.org/2016-year-review-digital-rights">Read other articles about the fight for digital rights in 2016.</a></p>
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</div></div></div>Sun, 25 Dec 2016 21:01:03 +000094251 at https://www.eff.orgFair UseDefend Your Right to Repair!DMCADMCA RulemakingFixing Copyright? The 2013-2016 Copyright Review ProcessKerry SheehanPresident Signs Law Protecting Your Right to Reviewhttps://www.eff.org/pt-br/deeplinks/2016/12/president-signs-law-protecting-right-review
<div class="field field--name-body field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden"><div class="field__items"><div class="field__item even"><h3>The Consumer Review Fairness Act Is an Win for Free Speech Online, Despite Possible Flaw</h3>
<p>President Obama <a href="https://www.engadget.com/2016/12/15/president-obama-signs-the-consumer-review-fairness-act-into-law/">recently signed</a> the Consumer Review Fairness Act of 2016 (<a href="https://www.congress.gov/bill/114th-congress/house-bill/5111">H.R. 5111</a>), which passed both houses of Congress unanimously. The bill addresses a dangerous trend: businesses inserting clauses into their form contracts that attempt to limit their customers’ ability to criticize products and services online. We’re pleased to see Congress taking a big step to protect free speech online and rein in abusive form contracts.</p>
<p>The CRFA tackles two different ways that businesses attempt to squash their customers’ reviews. The first is rather straightforward: simply inserting clauses into their form contracts saying that customers can’t post negative reviews online, or imposing a fine for them. For instance, the <a href="http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2014/08/05/union_street_guest_house_is_it_legal_to_fine_consumers_for_negative_online.html">Union Street Guest House</a> used such a contract and attempted to fine guests over their bad reviews.</p>
<p>The second tactic is a bit more roundabout: businesses put a clause in their contracts saying that they own the copyright to customers’ reviews. Then, when they see a review that they don’t like, they file a takedown notice under the <a href="https://www.eff.org/issues/dmca">Digital Millennium Copyright Act</a> (DMCA). One notorious example of that trick is a <a href="https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2011/05/medical-justice-stifling-speech-patients-touch">form contract for doctors offered by a company called Medical Justice</a>. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services <a href="https://www.hhs.gov/hipaa/for-professionals/compliance-enforcement/examples/all-cases/index.html#case29">ordered doctors to quit using such contracts in 2013</a>, but similar practices live on across different industries. The CRFA voids both types of contract clauses and makes it illegal for businesses to offer them.</p>
<p>When we’ve written previously about the CRFA, <a href="https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2016/09/copyright-loophole-could-undermine-important-consumer-protection-bill">we’ve noted a potential gap in the way the law was worded</a>. Companies may try to argue that they are allowed to craft contract clauses assigning themselves the copyright to customers’ reviews so long as the reviews are not “lawful.” Companies may then attempt to remove web content written by customers using the special censorship tools available to copyright owners under the DMCA, claiming that that content is not <i>lawful</i> (for example, because it allegedly defames the company). If courts—or service providers who receive takedown notices—accept that reasoning, then vendors could bypass the traditional protections for allegedly illegal speech, having content removed immediately under the DMCA rather than going through a court as it normally would for non-copyright speech claims. We are disappointed that Congress failed to clearly foreclose this abuse of form contracts and the DMCA takedown process.</p>
<p>Ultimately, though, <a href="https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2015/11/consumer-review-freedom-act-would-protect-customers-right-post-reviews">anti-review contracts were already on very shaky legal ground</a> before the CRFA passed, as were form contracts that included <a href="https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2016/06/shouldnt-be-copyright-case-and-neither-party-owns-copyright-anyway">surprising transfers of copyright ownership</a>. Courts have reliably sided with the customer’s freedom to write negative reviews. We will be watching closely to see if any unscrupulous companies attempt to take advantage of the ambiguous wording in the law. If that happens, the courts should shut it down.</p>
<p>Despite this oversight, we’re glad to see Congress standing up to the use of abusive form contracts to stifle freedom of expression. It’s telling that the bill passed both chambers unanimously: in a session that’s been marked by gridlock, this has been one area where lawmakers in both parties agree. We hope to see lawmakers build on this progress and protect customers in the next session of Congress via bills like the <a href="https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2015/05/federal-anti-slapp-bill-introduced-house">SPEAK FREE Act</a> and the <a href="https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2016/04/forced-arbitration-bad-deal">Justice for Telecommunications Consumers Act</a>.</p>
</div></div></div>Wed, 21 Dec 2016 23:10:07 +000094314 at https://www.eff.orgCommentaryFair UseDMCAFree SpeechBloggers' RightsCyberSLAPPElliot HarmonFair Use Is Essential to a Free Presshttps://www.eff.org/pt-br/deeplinks/2016/12/fair-use-essential-free-press
<div class="field field--name-body field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden"><div class="field__items"><div class="field__item even"><h3>News Media Alliance’s Call to Weaken Protections Is Dangerous</h3>
<p>When copyright law and the First Amendment come into conflict, the First Amendment must win. The fair use doctrine—the idea that there are certain ways that you can use a piece of copyrighted work regardless of whether you have the rightsholder’s permission—was written into copyright law to help ensure that copyright holders’ wishes are never elevated above free speech. As such, it’s been an essential tool for defending a free press: without fair use protections, people and companies in the public eye could use copyright law to ban coverage that’s critical of them. It’s alarming, then, to see an association that represents news companies asking the Trump transition team (and presumably Congress) to change the law and weaken fair use.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.newsmediaalliance.org/">News Media Alliance</a> (formerly the Newspaper Association of America) recently released a <a href="/files/2016/12/09/nma_white-paper-trump-transition-team.pdf">whitepaper addressed to the Trump transition team</a> (PDF). NMA asks for “strong copyright protection” that will “[allow] for a return on [the news media industry’s] massive investment.” In essence, it claims that Google News and similar aggregators steal newspapers’ profits.</p>
<p>It’s unclear exactly how NMA wants news aggregators regulated. A copyright law that would bar websites from linking to and posting short excerpts of news articles? When <a href="https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2016/08/european-copyright-leak-exposes-plans-force-internet-subsidize-publishers">similar laws have been proposed</a> and <a href="https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20150725/14510131761/study-spains-google-tax-news-shows-how-much-damage-it-has-done.shtml">passed in Europe</a>, they’ve been shown to <a href="https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20150725/14510131761/study-spains-google-tax-news-shows-how-much-damage-it-has-done.shtml">hurt newspaper revenues and keep new voices out of the journalism market</a>.</p>
<p>According to NMA, “[o]utdated interpretations of copyright laws mean that the industry is currently forced to give away much of its product for free.” That's an odd charge to level against copyright law. The law certainly doesn’t <i>force</i> newspapers to adopt a try-before-you-buy business model. A copyright regime in which it’s illegal to link to and provide information about other sites’ content would threaten work that <a href="http://cmsimpact.org/code/set-principles-fair-use-journalism/">print and Web journalists do every day</a>.</p>
<p>Indeed, a core principle of a free press is that you can report on others’ speech <i>regardless of whether you have their permission</i>. In 2011, Bloomberg obtained and published a recording of a conference call that Swatch Group had held to discuss its financial performance. <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/us-swatch-bloomberg-idUSBREA0Q1CY20140127">Swatch sued Bloomberg for copyright infringement</a>. The case went to an appeals court, which recognized that Bloomberg’s use of the recording was fair. The judge pointed out that Swatch’s demands <a href="https://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=12594316535246745664">ran contrary to the very idea of a free press</a>: “That kind of activity, whose protection lies at the core of the First Amendment, would be crippled if the news media and similar organizations were limited to sources of information that authorize disclosure.”</p>
<p>Even more troubling is NMA's call to “refocus the fair-use test” as part of a “Copyright Act rewrite.” For over 25 years, one of the key concepts that courts have used to determine if a use is fair is to look at whether that use is <em>transformative</em>—that is, whether it creates something new or fulfills a new purpose that the original work did not. The test was first coined in a 1990 article by Judge Pierre Leval and <a href="https://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=16686162998040575773">adopted by the Supreme Court in 1994</a>.</p>
<p>NMA claims that the transformative use test “dramatically weakened” copyright and “undermined the integrity of the long established fair use factors.” The implication that transformativeness is a recent phenomenon is misleading. And again, NMA seems to be asking the government to revoke rights that journalists rely on: the use of quotations and eyewitness photos in news reporting is itself a form of transformative fair use. Glibly asking to change the fair use statute, which has been the bedrock of copyright law's free speech protections since it was written into the Copyright Act in 1976, is short-sighted and dangerous.</p>
<p>There’s a storied history of people and corporations in power trying to use copyright law to veto journalism they don’t like. In 2003, Diebold attempted to use the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) to force Internet service providers to censor documents showing that Diebold was aware of flaws in its electronic voting machines. When EFF sued on behalf of the student activists who posted the documents and the nonprofit ISP that hosted them, the court didn’t just <a href="https://www.eff.org/press/archives/2004/09/30">find that Diebold was in the wrong</a>; it found that the company had <a href="https://www.eff.org/press/archives/2004/10/15">intentionally abused the DMCA</a>, knowing that no copyright infringement had taken place. The transformative use test, the very test that NMA seems to be calling to eliminate, is what allowed activists to report on flaws in voting machines that posed a threat to American democracy.</p>
<p>Politicians have tried to use copyright as an instrument of censorship too. Take Ecuadorian president Rafael Correa, who appears to have attempted <a href="https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2014/05/state-censorship-copyright-spanish-firm-abuses-DMCA">several times</a> to use the DMCA to <a href="https://cpj.org/blog/2016/01/how-us-copyright-law-is-being-used-to-take-down-co.php">take down photographs and other content</a> posted by his critics.</p>
<p>As Mike Masnick points out in Techdirt, NMA’s memo is particularly ironic in light of President-elect Trump’s <a href="https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20161208/00055836223/short-sighted-newspaper-association-asks-trump-to-whittle-down-fair-use-because-it-hates-google.shtml">troubled relationship with the news media</a>. With a President-elect who <a href="http://www.cjr.org/first_person/donald_trump_lawsuit_new_york_times.php">routinely threatens to sue the press</a> and has promised to <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/02/26/donald-trump-vows-to-open-up-libel-laws-to-make-suing-the-media-easier-heres-how-he-could-do-it/?utm_term=.a15f82bd0956">“open up” libel laws</a> so that he can more easily sue newspapers for their coverage of him, it’s troubling for an organization representing the news media to advocate for policies that would compromise journalists’ ability to defend themselves.</p>
<p>The whitepaper also recommends an end to various restrictions on the media, including laws intended to make it more difficult for news organizations to develop monopolies. It’s obvious that NMA is looking to Trump’s <a href="http://www.npr.org/2016/11/09/501451368/here-is-what-donald-trump-wants-to-do-in-his-first-100-days">promise to deregulate business</a>. That strategy doesn’t seem to apply to its copyright policy, though—laws restricting search engines and news aggregators from cataloguing copyrighted content are the <i>opposite</i> of deregulation.</p>
<p>Powerful copyright holders often attempt to write off fair use, treating it as a loophole in copyright law or an old-fashioned relic. When lobbyists trivialize fair use, they’re really trivializing your freedom of expression. We’ve gotten used to hearing <a href="https://www.eff.org/cases/lenz-v-universal">large entertainment conglomerates</a> disregard the importance of fair use to a free society. But a group that claims to represent the news media? That’s shocking.</p>
<p>There’s a reason why <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/107">the section of U.S. copyright law that defines fair use</a> specifically notes its importance to news reporting and commentary. Fair use is one of the safety valves in copyright law intended to protect First Amendment rights. Today, journalism is more crucial to public life than it’s ever been. The press can’t afford to weaken one of its most important tools.</p>
</div></div></div>Mon, 12 Dec 2016 20:27:51 +000094123 at https://www.eff.orgCommentaryFair UseDMCAElliot HarmonThe World Wide Web Consortium at a Crossroads: Arms-Dealers or Standards-Setters?https://www.eff.org/pt-br/node/93816
<div class="field field--name-body field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden"><div class="field__items"><div class="field__item even"><p>The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) has a hard decision to make: a coalition including the world's top research institutions; organizations supporting blind users on three continents; security firms; blockchain startups; browser vendors and user rights groups have asked it not to hand control over web video to some of the biggest companies in the world. For their part, those multinational companies have asked the W3C to hand them a legal weapon they can use to shut down any use of online video they don't like, even lawful fair use.</p>
<p>Is the W3C in the business of protecting the open web and its users, or is it an arms-dealer supplying multinational companies with the materiel they need to rule the web? We're about to find out.</p>
<p>The W3C makes the open standards that allow anyone to make a browser that can read all the documents on the web, and anyone to make a document that can be read by any of those browsers. But in 2013, the W3C started work on a project to give entertainment companies control over who could make a browser that could show streaming videos, creating a standard for "encrypted media extensions" (EME) that Hollywood would control. Even if you make an EME-capable browser that doesn't violate any copyright laws, it will only show you videos if it also gets the blessing of some of the biggest media companies in the world.</p>
<p>Like all businesses, media companies have a mix of commercial preferences and legal rights. For example, companies have the legal right to prevent people from making and distributing copies of their videos, with important exceptions. The same copyright law that gives them that right also gives you—the viewer—legal rights, like the right to record a video to watch later, or to convert the video to a format that can be enjoyed by blind people. Maybe they'd prefer that you not record videos for later (for example, so they can charge extra for a "home recording" feature), but that's just a preference, not a right.</p>
<p>For decades, media companies have tried to convert their commercial preferences to legal rights, by invoking a 1998 law called the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). Section 1201 of the DMCA makes it illegal to bypass software that locks up copyrighted works, even when you're doing something totally legitimate, like converting a video you're allowed to watch so it will play on an unsupported device. Companies design their products so that locking software (called "Digital Rights Management" or DRM) enforces their preferences, then argue that breaking the DRM is illegal, anything that displeases them is therefore a crime.</p>
<p>Companies whose browsers include EME can use DMCA 1201 to threaten competitors—or anyone, really—engaged in legitimate activities that have been vital to the web since day one. They can attack people who are adding features to help visually disabled people; they can attack companies adding legal features like time- and format-shifting; and scariest of all, they can attack security researchers who reveal defects in browsers that put every web user at risk. Security professionals who reveal companies' embarrassing software mistakes are often accused of breaking digital locks, since knowledge of software errors may be used to bypass DRM.</p>
<p>If the W3C approves EME, everything changes. The "open standards" that made the web so vibrant and democratic will only be available to people who promise not to offend the entertainment industry. In fact, the Open Source Initiative—the world's leading body for certifying open standards—has <a href="https://opensource.org/osr-drm">said that EME won't qualify as an open standard</a> at all, a shameful first in the W3C's proud history.</p>
<p>EFF would prefer that the W3C abandon EME altogether. The W3C's job isn't to help companies make up private laws whose enforcement can be outsourced to public courts. When the W3C announced EME, we paid to join the W3C and make this argument from the inside. The W3C sided with the giant companies pushing for DRM in web standards. The W3C told us that we had a problem with the DMCA, not a problem with DRM itself (actually, we have a problem with <em>both</em>).</p>
<p>So we <a href="https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2016/06/w3c-eme-and-eff-frequently-asked-questions">offered a compromise</a>: take the DMCA off the table. Make W3C members promise not to use DMCA 1201 against anyone engaged in legitimate activity—activity that didn't violate copyright or any other law. Let security researchers—not the companies they embarrass—decide when and how to talk about the defects they find. Let accessibility organizations create tools to help people with disabilities. Let innovative companies make lawful products. As far as we can tell, <a href="https://www.eff.org/document/list-1201-threats">there has <em>never</em> been a case where this would have prevented a legitimate rights-enforcement action</a>. So if the W3C approved our proposal, things would stay <em>exactly as they are</em>: companies could enforce all the rights that Congress gave them, but wouldn't be able to use W3C standards to create new rights for themselves.</p>
<p>Now, the decision is in the W3C's hands. The charter for the EME working group runs out on November 30th, and the major corporations pushing for EME have said that they're done with their major work and ready to have the W3C publish their work without any safeguards against legal abuse.</p>
<p>In October, the W3C polled its members about EME. Dozens of those members spoke loudly and on the public record, demanding that the W3C halt work on EME unless some step is taken to prevent abuse of laws like the DMCA. Those members include:</p>
<p>* <b>The Royal National Institute for Blind People (UK); Media Access Australia and Vision Australia; and Benetech and SSB Bart (USA)</b>: three continents' worth of blind-rights advocacy organizations.<br /><em>EME means that groups like these won't be make tools to adapt video for their specific disabilities (for example, a tool to shift the colors of videos to help color-blind people; or a machine-learning tool that automatically adds descriptive tracks to videos);</em></p>
<p>* <b>Brave</b>: a new entrant into the browser market.<br /><em>Companies that are starting out want to offer all legal features to their users, not just the ones that the entertainment companies and old browser companies have decided we should get;</em></p>
<p>* <b>Oxford University, The Eindhoven University of Technology, Kings College London, The Open University, Lawrence Berkeley Labs, and others</b>, representing some of the world's leading research institutions;<br /><em>Their researchers can't afford to risk legal retaliation for investigating and reporting on defects in browsers;</em></p>
<p>* <b>Ripple, Ethereum, Blockstream</b>: three of the world's leading blockchain companies; they were joined by <b>White Ops</b>, a security company run by some of the industry's best-respected experts.<br /><em> People who understand information security and cryptography are rightly alarmed at the thought of browsers that are off-limits to security researchers who can surface problems before they are exploited and used to attack users and companies alike;</em></p>
<p>* <b>Hypothes.is and Dublin Core</b>: two leading representatives of the open data/metadata sector.<br /><em> The web depends on an open platform that anyone can improve, annotate and extend;</em></p>
<p>* <b>Deutsche Nationalbibliothek</b>: the national library of Germany, charged with archiving all German copyrighted works;</p>
<p>* <b>Vivliostyle</b>: a critical member of the standards community who has contributed significantly to W3C community.<br /><em> Open standards can't be subject to a veto from a handful of self-interested companies;</em></p>
<p>* <b>Electronic Frontier Foundation and the Center for Democracy &amp; Technology</b>: user-rights organizations with a long track record of fighting against corporate abuse of the standards-setting process.</p>
<p>Security researchers are alarmed, too. <a href="https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2016/03/security-researchers-tell-w3c-protect-researchers-who-investigate-browsers">Hundreds of researchers </a>have called on the W3C to protect their work. A group of principal investigators from CSAIL, MIT's computer science department -- which hosts the W3C -- sent a letter to the W3C executive, expressing concern that EME presents a danger to the work of MIT researchers and independent researchers alike, and calling out EME for what it is: a way to put proprietary content on the Web. This group was organized by Hal Abelson, one of the most esteemed computer scientists in the field today.</p>
<p>The W3C itself is deeply divided on this issue. The organization's head of strategy, Wendy Seltzer, <a href="https://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-html-media/2016Aug/0007.html">publicly called on the organization</a> to protect the web from DMCA abuse; she's joined by leading engineers from the W3C, who signed <a href="https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2016/03/security-researchers-tell-w3c-protect-researchers-who-investigate-browsers">the security researchers' open letter</a>.</p>
<p>Other web standards bodies, like the Web Hypertext Application Technology Working Group, <a href="https://blog.whatwg.org/drm-and-web-security">have condemned the W3C</a> for failing to protect innovators, disabled people and security researchers from the fallout from standardizing DRM.</p>
<p>DRM and the open web are not compatible with one another. The W3C exists to broker consensus among the web's many stakeholders, not to steamroller startups, disabled people, public interest groups, researchers, cryptographers, libraries and the academic and security communities on behalf of giant global corporations.</p>
<p>The other side of this debate argues that the DMCA might not apply to EME, so there's no reason to worry. We say they're wrong. The rules in DMCA 1201 have been spread across the world by the US Trade Representative—Israel is a notable exception, so it's no coincidence that the only security researcher who came forward to announce that <a href="http://boingboing.net/2016/06/24/googles-version-of-the-w3c.html">Google's EME had been badly broken for six years</a> was Israeli. There isn't a legal authority alive who could promise that people making legitimate changes to browsers with EME have nothing to fear from all these DMCA-alikes.</p>
<p>The stakes are high. We can't afford the gamble that the companies who want EME are right when they say it won't let them abuse the DMCA—if they're so certain that they can't invoke the DMCA over EME, it would cost them nothing to promise never to do so. The fact that they won't make this promise tells you everything you need to know about their assurances.</p>
<p>In the meantime, if you've found vulnerabilities in EME-equipped browsers, <a href="TK">we want to know about it</a>. We've been defending people on the front lines of the open internet since 1992.</p>
</div></div></div>Mon, 05 Dec 2016 15:58:53 +000093816 at https://www.eff.orgCommentaryDMCADRMCory DoctorowCopyright Office Sets Trap for Unwary Website Ownershttps://www.eff.org/pt-br/deeplinks/2016/11/copyright-office-sets-trap-unwary-website-owners
<div class="field field--name-body field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden"><div class="field__items"><div class="field__item even"><h3>Making Safe Harbors Expire Is Dangerous and Unnecessary</h3>
<p>Under a new rule from the Copyright Office, website owners could be exposed to massive risk of copyright liability simply for neglecting to submit an online form on time. The rule could eliminate the safe harbor status that thousands of websites receive under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA).</p>
<p>Current law (<a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/512">17 U.S.C. § 512</a>, which was enacted as part of the DMCA) protects the owners of websites and online services from monetary liability based on the allegedly infringing activities of their users or other third parties. Owners must meet many requirements in order to be eligible for that protection, including participating in the <a href="https://www.eff.org/issues/dmca">notice-and-takedown procedure</a> for allegedly infringing content.</p>
<p>They also must register an agent with the Copyright Office, someone who can respond to takedown requests and other communications. The Copyright Office rewrote the registration process this week, requiring everyone to re-register before December 31, 2017, and renew that registration every three years. When website owners inevitably forget to renew, copyright holders will be able to take advantage of that mistake to hold them liable for their users’ infringing activities. In fact, it will be trivial for abusive copyright holders to use the Copyright Office’s own system to compile lists of sites at risk.</p>
<p>The change comes as part of a multi-year project to modernize the system for registering authorized agents. Clearly, the system needed an update: the current system of <a href="http://www.copyright.gov/onlinesp/agents/e/elect_frontier.pdf">scanned-in documents</a> (PDF) is absurd; a new online database is long overdue. But <a href="http://blog.ericgoldman.org/archives/2011/11/dangerous_copyr.htm">as we’ve repeatedly warned the Office</a>, automatic expirations shouldn’t be a part of the new system. They’ll do far more harm than good.</p>
<p>The Copyright Office’s announcement offers a <a href="http://www.copyright.gov/newsnet/2016/640.html">litany of explanations for the change</a>, but none of them are persuasive, and certainly none of them come close to outweighing the risks.</p>
<p>The Office says that the contact information for 65% of the sites in its database are different from the designated agent information that owners gave on their own sites. As Internet law expert Eric Goldman points out, <a href="http://blog.ericgoldman.org/archives/2016/10/copyright-office-gratuitously-kills-the-dmca-safe-harbor-for-thousands-of-websites.htm">that doesn’t mean that the current entries are incorrect</a>:</p>
<blockquote><p>Did the Copyright Office consider that service providers might offer copyright owners <b>multiple</b> ways to provide legitimate notice? The statute doesn’t require the onsite disclosures to mirror the contact info in the Copyright Office’s designation; and in fact it’s likely that many registrants updated their contact procedures over time but saw no reason to pay the Copyright Office to amend the existing designation–<b>especially if they didn’t deprecate the prior contact mechanisms</b>.</p></blockquote>
<p>The Office also mentions that its database of authorized agents includes some defunct websites and companies. Again, the best response would be, “So?” A database with some defunct entries is a small price to pay for a vital protection that websites rely on. Besides, as Goldman notes, the problem of website owners failing to update their records solves itself: they miss takedown notices and lose the safe harbor.</p>
<p>The Copyright Office highlights that under the new system, the cost of registering a designated agent will be lower. That’s great news, and it makes sense: processing registrations will certainly be less time-consuming. But it still doesn’t justify or explain the need for renewals.</p>
<p>What’s truly frightening about this rule is who it’s likely to affect the most. YouTube and Facebook will be fine. It’s small companies, small nonprofits, and activist groups that are at risk—the same groups that are most poorly poised to fight copyright infringement suits. <a href="https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2016/06/eff-tells-copyright-office-no-new-barriers-dmca-safe-harbors">As we told the Copyright Office</a> earlier this year, DMCA 512 already imposes a long list of conditions on service providers, and we’ve seen many well-meaning service providers lose their status over technicalities. Requiring providers to commit to updating their registrations indefinitely is a step too far.</p>
<p>Safe harbors are an essential part of how the modern Internet works. Any proposal that either weakens safe harbor protections or <a href="https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2016/01/notice-and-stay-down-really-filter-everything">piles more responsibilities on participants</a> requires extra scrutiny. We fear that this new rule will lock out precisely the organizations that most need safe harbor status.</p>
</div></div></div>Tue, 01 Nov 2016 19:42:45 +000093722 at https://www.eff.orgCommentaryDMCAFair UseElliot HarmonSamsung Sets Its Reputation on Fire With Bogus DMCA Takedown Noticeshttps://www.eff.org/pt-br/deeplinks/2016/10/samsung-sets-its-reputation-fire-bogus-dmca-takedown-notices
<div class="field field--name-body field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden"><div class="field__items"><div class="field__item even"><p>While there are countless examples of <a href="https://www.eff.org/takedowns">DMCA abuse</a>, sometimes a story stands out. Last week, Samsung sent a <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-37713939">series</a> of <a href="http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2016/10/samsung-doesnt-want-you-to-see-video-of-this-gta-v-exploding-phone-mod/">takedown notices</a> aimed at videos showing a <a href="https://www.gta5-mods.com/weapons/samsung-galaxy-note-7-bomb">GTA V mod</a> in action. The modification replaced an in-game weapon with an exploding Samsung phone. Whether you think these videos are hilarious or in bad taste (or both), they are a parody inspired by <a href="http://www.theverge.com/2016/9/8/12855352/samsung-note-7-recall-fires">real-life stories</a> of Galaxy Note 7s catching fire. Samsung may not enjoy this commentary, but that does not excuse its abuse of the DMCA.</p>
<p></p><div class="caption caption-center"><div class="caption-width-container"><div class="caption-inner"><img src="/files/2016/10/26/gtav_mod.png" alt="" title="Still from Modded Games on YouTube" height="325" width="550" /><p class="caption-text">Still from <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_GhODn4FRoE">Modded Games</a> on YouTube</p></div></div></div>
<p>In our view, Samsung does not have a viable copyright claim against these YouTube videos. Even if Samsung does own a related copyright—perhaps in the design of its logo or in the phone’s screen image—it cannot use that copyright to control all depictions of its phones. <a href="http://www.techradar.com/reviews/phones/mobile-phones/samsung-galaxy-note-7-1325876/review">Reviews</a> and <a href="https://www.cnet.com/news/why-is-samsung-galaxy-note-7-exploding-overheating/">news coverage</a> need to show images of the phone. And even snarky commentary, like footage of the GTA V mod, is fair use.</p>
<p>If it doesn’t have a viable copyright claim, why did Samsung send DMCA takedown notices? We asked Samsung’s counsel (the <a href="http://imgur.com/a/teTNN">notices</a> were sent on Samsung’s behalf by the 900-lawyer firm <a href="http://www.paulhastings.com/">Paul Hastings LLP</a>) but received no response. It appears that Samsung took the easy path to removing content it did not like by making a copyright claim where none existed. DMCA takedown notices are, by far, the quickest and easiest way to get speech removed from the Internet. That makes them irresistible for <a href="https://www.eff.org/takedowns/retailer-tries-censor-photoshop-disaster-advertisement">companies</a>, <a href="https://www.eff.org/takedowns/attempt-silence-political-speech-right-wing-watch">individuals</a>, and even <a href="https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2014/05/state-censorship-copyright-spanish-firm-abuses-DMCA">governments</a> eager to censor online speech.</p>
<p>DMCA abuse flourishes because, in practice, companies that send improper notices don’t face sufficiently serious consequences. This issue is currently before the Supreme Court in <a href="https://www.eff.org/cases/lenz-v-universal">Lenz v. Universal</a>. In that case, EFF represents Stephanie Lenz who posted a short video to YouTube showing her toddler son dancing to a Prince song. After Universal sent a takedown notice, Lenz sued arguing that the video was clearly fair use and the notice was sent in bad faith. Last year, the Ninth Circuit <a href="https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2015/09/takedown-senders-must-consider-fair-use-ninth-circuit-rules">ruled</a> that copyright holders must consider fair use before sending a takedown notice. Unfortunately, the appeals court <a href="https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2015/10/eff-seeks-rehearing-dancing-baby-case-ensure-fair-use-gets-real-protection">also set a very high bar</a> for enforcing that standard. It held that senders of false infringement notices could be excused so long as they <i>subjectively</i> believed that the material was infringing, no matter how unreasonable that belief. Lenz <a href="https://www.eff.org/press/releases/eff-asks-supreme-court-review-dancing-baby-copyright-case">has asked the Supreme Court</a> to review that aspect of the ruling.</p>
<p>In the next week or two, the Supreme Court will decide whether or not it will hear Lenz’s appeal. We hope that it takes the case and provides users with the protection that Congress intended. In the meantime, we can only <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streisand_effect">hope</a> that DMCA abuse like Samsung’s <a href="https://media.giphy.com/media/3oz8xAfsxiA9aBytq0/source.gif">backfires</a>.</p>
</div></div></div><div class="field field--name-field-related-cases field--type-node-reference field--label-above"><div class="field__label">Related Cases:&nbsp;</div><div class="field__items"><div class="field__item even"><a href="/pt-br/cases/lenz-v-universal">Lenz v. Universal</a></div></div></div>Wed, 26 Oct 2016 19:37:50 +000093627 at https://www.eff.orgFair UseDMCAFree SpeechDaniel NazerTell the Copyright Office: Copyright Law Shouldn't Punish Research and Repairhttps://www.eff.org/pt-br/deeplinks/2016/10/tell-copyright-office-copyright-law-shouldnt-punish-research-and-repair
<div class="field field--name-body field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden"><div class="field__items"><div class="field__item even"><p><a href="https://act.eff.org/action/copyright-law-shouldn-t-punish-research-and-repair"><img src="/files/2016/07/18/1201-cases-5-og.jpg" alt="Copyright Law Shouldn’t Punish Research and Repair" height="325" width="650" /></a></p>
<p>After eighteen years, we may finally see real reform to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act’s unconstitutional pro-DRM provisions. But we need your help.</p>
<p>In enacting the “anti-circumvention” provisions of the DMCA, Congress ostensibly intended to stop copyright “pirates” from defeating DRM and other content access or copy restrictions on copyrighted works and to ban the “black box” devices intended for that purpose. In practice, the DMCA anti-circumvention provisions haven’t had much impact on unauthorized sharing of copyrighted content. Instead, they’ve hampered lawful creativity, innovation, competition, security, and privacy.</p>
<p>In the past few years, there’s been a growing movement to reform the law. As locked-down copyrighted software shows up in more and more devices, from phones to refrigerators to tractors, more and more people are realizing how important it is to be able to break those locks, for all kinds of legitimate reasons. If you can’t tinker with it, repair it, or peek under the hood, then you don’t really own it—someone else does, and their interests will take precedence over yours.</p>
<p>It seems the Copyright Office has heard those concerns. As part of an <a href="http://www.copyright.gov/policy/1201/">ongoing study</a>, it’s <a href="/files/2016/10/10/1201-noi.pdf">asking for comments</a> (PDF) on whether it should recommend that Congress enact a series of permanent exemptions to the law for several important and useful activities, including security research and repair.</p>
<p>On the one hand, any such recommendation may be too little and too late. Section 1201 is <a href="https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2016/07/research-and-remixes-law-wont-allow">unconstitutional to begin with</a> and should simply be repealed. Short of that, the best way for Congress to fix the law would be to pass Zoe Lofgren’s <a href="https://act.eff.org/action/unchain-your-devices-with-the-unlocking-technology-act">Unlocking Technology Act</a>, which would protect those who want to <a href="https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2015/04/new-breaking-down-barriers-innovation-act-targets-many-dmca-section-1201s-problems">break digital locks for noninfringing reasons</a>. The permanent exemptions on the table don’t cover a host of other legitimate activities, like <a href="https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2014/11/eff-asks-librarian-congress-help-correct-dmca-gotcha">remix videos and documentary films</a>.</p>
<p>On the other hand, this is progress. For almost two decades, EFF and a host of legal clinics and other public interest organizations have been going to the Librarian of Congress to <a href="https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2015/10/victory-users-librarian-congress-renews-and-expands-protections-fair-uses">plead for temporary exemptions</a> on behalf of creators, researchers, people with disabilities, and other technology users. We’ve explained why those exemptions are needed and why they won’t harm copyright owners. There is no evidence, not a jot, than any such exemption has led to infringement—but that doesn’t save us from having to march back in every three years to do it all over again. Making a few of those exemptions permanent would let us all focus our energies on expanding the reach of the temporary ones, and working to streamline the process so it is less burdensome for both users and the government.</p>
<p>But that progress won’t be meaningful if the permanent exemptions aren’t truly useful. EFF is drafting comments that we hope will result in a strong and practical set of recommendations. But we need your help. We need to let the Copyright Office—and Congress—know that users want real reform and won’t settle for exemptions that fall short. Please take a moment to sign our petition; we will deliver your signatures to the Copyright Office along with our comment.</p>
<p class="eff_digital_voices-take_action"><a href="https://act.eff.org/action/copyright-law-shouldn-t-punish-research-and-repair"><img src="/sites/all/modules/custom/eff_digital_voices/plugins/take_action/images/button.png" alt="Take Action" title="Take Action" class="eff_digital_voices-take_action" /><strong>Tell the Copyright Office: copyright law shouldn’t punish research and repair.</strong></a></p>
</div></div></div>Tue, 11 Oct 2016 19:32:50 +000093479 at https://www.eff.orgFair UseDMCACreativity & InnovationDRMCorynne McSherryEFF Asks Court to Block U.S. From Prosecuting Security Researcher For Detecting and Publishing Computer Vulnerabilitieshttps://www.eff.org/pt-br/press/releases/eff-asks-court-block-us-prosecuting-security-researcher-detecting-and-publishing
<div class="field field--name-field-pr-subhead field--type-text field--label-hidden"><div class="field__items"><div class="field__item even">DMCA Provision Violates Author’s First Amendment Right to Publish Research About Computer Security</div></div></div><div class="field field--name-body field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden"><div class="field__items"><div class="field__item even"><p class="MsoNormal">Washington, D.C.—The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) <a href="https://www.eff.org/document/green-v-doj-motion-preliminary-injunction" target="_blank">asked</a> a court Thursday for an order that would prevent the government from prosecuting its client, security researcher <a target="_blank" href="http://spar.isi.jhu.edu/~mgreen/">Matthew Green</a>, for publishing a book about making computer systems more secure. <span> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Green is writing a book about methods of security research to recognize vulnerabilities in computer systems. This important work helps keep everyone safer by finding weaknesses in computer code running devices critical to our lives—electronic devices, cars, medical record systems, credit card processing, and ATM transactions. Green’s aim is to publish research that can be used to build more secure software.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">But publishing <a target="_blank" href="https://blog.cryptographyengineering.com/">the book</a>, tentatively entitled <i>Practical Cryptographic Engineering,</i> could land Green in jail under an onerous and unconstitutional provision of copyright law. To identify security vulnerabilities in a device he has purchased, Green must work directly with copyrighted computer code, bypassing control measures meant to prevent the code from being accessed. Even though this kind of research is traditionally a <a target="_blank" href="https://www.eff.org/issues/intellectual-property">“fair use”</a> permitted by copyright law, <a target="_blank" href="https://www.eff.org/issues/dmca">Digital Millennium Copyright Act</a><span> </span>(DMCA) Section 1201 threatens criminal and civil penalties— including jail time—for performing it or publishing information about the methods of security research. The <a target="_blank" href="https://www.eff.org/issues/dmca-rulemaking">exemptions</a> Congress included in the 1998 DMCA to protect security researchers from prosecution are vague, limited, and provide inadequate assurance against the serious legal ramifications of Section 1201 lawsuits—something the government itself has acknowledged.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“Under Section 1201, computer researchers can face serious penalties just for selling a book that would help people build better, more secure computer systems,” said EFF Legal Director Corynne McSherry. “As we explained when we filed a <a target="_blank" href="https://www.eff.org/press/releases/eff-lawsuit-takes-dmca-section-1201-research-and-technology-restrictions-violate">legal challenge</a> to the law in July, such penalties violate the First Amendment and threaten ordinary people for publishing research or even talking about circumventing computer code that’s embedded in nearly everything we own. With the <a target="_blank" href="https://www.eff.org/document/1201-complaint">lawsuit</a> underway, we’re asking the court to bar the government from prosecuting Dr. Green so he can publish a book that’s clearly in the public interest.”</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“If we want our communications and devices to be secure, we need to protect independent security researchers like Dr. Green,” said EFF Staff Attorney Kit Walsh. “Researchers should be encouraged to educate the public and the next generation of computer scientists. Instead, they are threatened by an unconstitutional law that has come unmoored from its original purpose of addressing copyright infringement. We’re going to court to protect everyone whose speech is squelched by this law, starting with Dr. Green and his book.”</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">EFF filed the Section 1201 lawsuit and Thursday's request for a court order with <span>co-counsel Brian Willen, Stephen Gikow, and Lauren Gallo White of Wilson Sonsini Goodrich &amp; Rosati.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">For the motion for preliminary injunction:<br />
h<a href="https://www.eff.org/document/green-v-doj-motion-preliminary-injunction" target="_blank">ttps://www.eff.org/document/green-v-doj-motion-preliminary-injunction</a></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">For more about this case:<br /><a target="_blank" href="https://www.eff.org/cases/green-v-us-department-justice">https://www.eff.org/cases/green-v-us-department-justice</a></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span> </span></p>
</div></div></div><div class="field field--name-field-contact field--type-node-reference field--label-above"><div class="field__label">Contact:&nbsp;</div><div class="field__items"><div class="field__item even"><div class="ds-1col node node--profile node--promoted view-mode-node_embed node--node-embed node--profile--node-embed clearfix">
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<div class="field field--name-field-profile-first-name field--type-text field--label-hidden"><div class="field__items"><div class="field__item even">Corynne</div></div></div><div class="field field--name-field-profile-last-name field--type-text field--label-hidden"><div class="field__items"><div class="field__item even">McSherry</div></div></div><div class="field field--name-field-profile-title field--type-text field--label-hidden"><div class="field__items"><div class="field__item even">Legal Director</div></div></div><div class="field field--name-field-profile-email field--type-email field--label-hidden"><div class="field__items"><div class="field__item even"><a href="mailto:corynne@eff.org">corynne@eff.org</a></div></div></div> </div>
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</div><div class="field__item odd"><div class="ds-1col node node--profile view-mode-node_embed node--node-embed node--profile--node-embed clearfix">
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<div class="field field--name-field-profile-first-name field--type-text field--label-hidden"><div class="field__items"><div class="field__item even">Kit</div></div></div><div class="field field--name-field-profile-last-name field--type-text field--label-hidden"><div class="field__items"><div class="field__item even">Walsh</div></div></div><div class="field field--name-field-profile-title field--type-text field--label-hidden"><div class="field__items"><div class="field__item even">Staff Attorney</div></div></div><div class="field field--name-field-profile-email field--type-email field--label-hidden"><div class="field__items"><div class="field__item even"><a href="mailto:kit@eff.org">kit@eff.org</a></div></div></div> </div>
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</div></div></div>Fri, 30 Sep 2016 13:15:05 +000093391 at https://www.eff.orgKaren GulloDon't Hide DRM in a Security Updatehttps://www.eff.org/pt-br/deeplinks/2016/09/dont-hide-drm-security-update
<div class="field field--name-body field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden"><div class="field__items"><div class="field__item even"><h3>HP Promises to Restore Printers’ Functionality, But Questions Remain</h3>
<p><a href="https://act.eff.org/action/tell-hp-say-no-to-drm"><img src="/files/2016/09/25/hp-drm-og_0.png" alt=" Say No to DRM" height="325" width="650" /></a></p>
<p><a href="https://act.eff.org/action/tell-hp-say-no-to-drm">Over 10,000 of you</a> have joined EFF in <a href="https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2016/09/what-hp-must-do-make-amends-its-self-destructing-printers">calling on HP to make amends for its self-destructing printers</a> in the past few days. Looks like we got the company’s attention: today, HP <a href="http://www8.hp.com/us/en/hp-news/blog/Small-Business-Printing/best-possible-printing-experience.html">posted a response on its blog</a>. Apparently recognizing that its customers are more likely to see an update that limits interoperability as a bug than as a feature, HP says that it will issue an optional firmware update rolling back the changes that it had made. We’re very glad to see HP making this step.</p>
<p>But a number of questions remain.</p>
<p>First, we’d like to know what HP’s plans are for informing users about the optional firmware update. Right now, the vast majority of people who use the affected printers likely do not know why their printers lost functionality, nor do they know that it’s possible to restore it. All of those customers should be able to use their printers free of artificial restrictions, not just the relatively few who have been closely following this story.</p>
<p>Second, we’re still asking HP to promise that it will never again use a security update to roll back features on which its customers rely. Customers should be able to buy an HP printer without fear that the company will later place artificial limits on the printer’s use. It would be a security nightmare for customers to avoid installing security updates for fear of unwanted and unannounced feature changes. Even people who don’t use Officejet printers should still be troubled by the possibility of thousands of printers running without security updates installed, leaving known vulnerabilities open to attack.</p>
<p>Third, HP should promise that it will never use Section 1201 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act to sue or threaten security researchers for bypassing its digital locks in the course of their work. We’ve already seen how legal protections for DRM have dissuaded researchers for disclosing vulnerabilities. For the sake of its customers’ safety, HP should commit to immunizing security researchers from legal threats under DMCA 1201.</p>
<p>Taking these steps can help fix HP’s mistake. But we remain troubled by the trend of companies using digital locks to break their own products’ functionality, and then representing those locks as security features. These anti-features endanger Internet security while making our products less useful. We hope that other companies learn from HP’s mistakes.</p>
<p class="eff_digital_voices-take_action"><a href="https://act.eff.org/action/tell-hp-say-no-to-drm"><img src="/sites/all/modules/custom/eff_digital_voices/plugins/take_action/images/button.png" alt="Take Action" title="Take Action" class="eff_digital_voices-take_action" /><strong>Tell HP: Say No to DRM.</strong></a></p>
</div></div></div>Wed, 28 Sep 2016 22:38:38 +000093156 at https://www.eff.orgCall To ActionFair UseDMCACreativity & InnovationDRMSecurityElliot HarmonWhat HP Must Do to Make Amends for Its Self-Destructing Printershttps://www.eff.org/pt-br/node/93080
<div class="field field--name-body field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden"><div class="field__items"><div class="field__item even"><h3><a href="https://act.eff.org/action/tell-hp-say-no-to-drm"><img src="/files/2016/09/25/hp-drm-og_0.png" alt=" Say No to DRM" height="325" width="650" /></a></h3>
<p class="eff_digital_voices-take_action"><a href="https://act.eff.org/action/tell-hp-say-no-to-drm"><img src="/sites/all/modules/custom/eff_digital_voices/plugins/take_action/images/button.png" alt="Take Action" title="Take Action" class="eff_digital_voices-take_action" /><strong>Tell HP: Say No to DRM.</strong></a></p>
<p>Dion Weisler<br />
President and CEO<br />
HP Inc.<br />
1501 Page Mill Road<br />
Palo Alto, CA 94304</p>
<p>September 26, 2016</p>
<p>Dear Mr. Weisler,</p>
<p>I write to you today on behalf of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a nonprofit devoted to defending technological freedom, human rights and privacy in courtrooms, legislatures, and online. Like many others, we are alarmed by <a href="https://www.wired.com/2016/09/hp-printer-drm/">reports</a> that HP has activated a dormant feature in Officejet Pro printers (and possibly other models), so that the printers now automatically verify whether its ink cartridges are official HP ink and not competitors' products or even refilled HP cartridges. If these printers detect third-party ink, printing stops. This activation was disguised as a security update.</p>
<p>You must be aware that this decision has shocked and angered your customers. Below, I have set out our concerns and the steps HP must take to begin to repair the damage it has done to its reputation and the public's trust.</p>
<h3>HP deprived its customers of a useful, legitimate feature</h3>
<p>HP customers should be able to use the ink of their choosing in their printers for the same reason that Cuisinart customers should be able to choose whose bread goes in their toasters. The practice of "tying" is rightly decried by economists and competition regulators as an invitation to monopoly pricing and reduced competition and innovation. HP customers should choose HP ink because it is the best, not because their printer won't work with a competitor's brand.</p>
<h3>HP abused its security update mechanism to trick its customers</h3>
<p>HP printers, like most other networked computers, have suffered <a href="http://ids.cs.columbia.edu/sites/default/files/CuiPrintMeIfYouDare.pdf">well-documented, catastrophic security vulnerabilities</a> that exposed customers' whole networks to attacks. Because <a href="https://www.schneier.com/essays/archives/2000/04/the_process_of_secur.html">security is a process, not a product</a>, vulnerabilities will continue to surface in your products throughout their lifecycles. Customers need to feel confident that they can accept security updates without compromising basic functionality.</p>
<p>By co-opting the security update mechanism to deliver an anti-feature—that is, something that works against your customers' interests—you have introduced doubt into the patch process. <a href="http://ids.cs.columbia.edu/sites/default/files/CuiPrintMeIfYouDare.pdf">Earlier proof-of-concept malicious software targeted to your products</a> screened print-jobs for Social Security Numbers and credit card details and sent them to attackers, or scanned customers' networks and hijacked their connected computers. By giving tens of millions of your customers a reason to mistrust your updates, you've put them at risk of future infections that could compromise their business and home networks, their sensitive data, and the gadgets that share their network with their printers, from baby monitors to thermostats.</p>
<h3>HP's time-delayed anti-feature is a bait-and-switch</h3>
<p>The software update that prevented the use of third-party ink was reportedly distributed in March, but this anti-feature itself wasn't activated until September. That means that HP knew, for at least six months, that some of its customers were buying your products because they believed they were compatible with any manufacturer's ink, while you had already planted a countdown timer in their property that would take this feature away. Your customers will have replaced their existing printers, or made purchasing recommendations to friends who trusted them on this basis. They are now left with a less useful printer—and possibly a stockpile of useless third-party ink cartridges.</p>
<h3>HP has posted a "keep out" sign for security researchers</h3>
<p>In using a technical countermeasure to exclude third-party cartridges, HP is signalling that it may invoke Section 1201 of the 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which makes it illegal (in most circumstances), and potentially a crime, to bypass measures that control access to copyrighted works. <a href="https://www.eff.org/cases/lexmark-v-static-control-case-archive">Another printer manufacturer tried to invoke this law</a> in similar circumstances, forcing its competitor to litigate the issue for years.</p>
<p>Security researchers rightly fear that disclosures of defects in products covered by Section 1201 could lead to severe punishments. Many respected researchers came forward at the Copyright Office's triennial 1201 exemptions hearing in 2015 to say that <a href="http://copyright.gov/1201/2015/comments-020615/"> they'd been chilled from disclosing vulnerabilities in 1201-covered systems</a>, from voting machines to tractors to insulin pumps. This means that bad guys are free to exploit vulnerabilities in these products, while good guys are scared off from warning the people who depend on them about the dangers lurking in them. Given the history of attacks on printers, and the widespread distribution of your products, this is the last thing you should want.</p>
<p>For all these reasons, we call on HP to take the following five steps, immediately:</p>
<ol><li>Apologize to your customers, and restore the original functionality of their printers with a firmware update that rolls back the self-destruct sequence;</li>
<li>Publicly commit that you will never again use your software update process to distribute anti-features that work against your customers' interests;</li>
<li>Publicly commit that the effects of any software updates will be fully disclosed;</li>
<li>Prominently disclose any capability or plan to remove features from devices in your sales literature, so customers know what they're getting before they buy;</li>
<li>Promise to never invoke Section 1201 of the DMCA against security researchers or competitors who make legitimate aftermarket products.</li>
</ol><p>I would be happy to discuss these measures with you at your convenience, and I look forward to hearing from you.</p>
<p>Cory Doctorow</p>
<p>Apollo 1201 Project<br />
Electronic Frontier Foundation</p>
<p class="eff_digital_voices-take_action"><a href="https://act.eff.org/action/tell-hp-say-no-to-drm"><img src="/sites/all/modules/custom/eff_digital_voices/plugins/take_action/images/button.png" alt="Take Action" title="Take Action" class="eff_digital_voices-take_action" /><strong>Tell HP: Say No to DRM.</strong></a></p>
</div></div></div>Mon, 26 Sep 2016 17:11:41 +000093080 at https://www.eff.orgCommentaryDMCADMCA RulemakingDRMCory DoctorowCopyright Loophole Could Undermine Important Consumer Protection Billhttps://www.eff.org/pt-br/deeplinks/2016/09/copyright-loophole-could-undermine-important-consumer-protection-bill
<div class="field field--name-body field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden"><div class="field__items"><div class="field__item even"><h3>The Consumer Review Fairness Act Is a Noble Bill but Could Leave the Door Open for Copyright Abuse</h3>
<p>There’s a bill making its way through Congress that would protect consumers’ freedom of speech by limiting unfair form contracts. The Consumer Review Fairness Act (<a href="https://www.congress.gov/bill/114th-congress/house-bill/5111">H.R. 5111</a>), introduced by Leonard Lance (R-NJ) and <a href="https://www.congress.gov/bill/114th-congress/house-bill/5111/cosponsors">cosponsored by several representatives</a>, would address two shameful practices: contracts that bar customers from sharing negative reviews of products and services online, and contracts that attempt to assign the copyright in customers’ reviews to the businesses themselves (who then file copyright takedown notices to have negative reviews removed). The CRFA is an important bill, and it addresses a major problem, but it contains one loophole that could undermine its ability to protect people who write online reviews.</p>
<p>An earlier version of the bill was introduced in both houses of Congress last year under the name Consumer Review <i>Freedom </i>Act (<a href="https://www.congress.gov/bill/114th-congress/senate-bill/2044">S. 2044</a>, <a href="https://www.congress.gov/bill/114th-congress/house-bill/2110">H.R. 2110</a>). EFF applauded the bill when it was introduced. <a href="https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2015/11/consumer-review-freedom-act-would-protect-customers-right-post-reviews">As we argued then</a>, when a customer has no reasonable opportunity to negotiate a contract and its terms are overwhelmingly stacked against the customer, the contract shouldn’t be enforceable. We noted that these contracts usually fail in court, but that that hasn’t stopped businesses from using them. We also pointed out a few problems with the CRFA. <a href="https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2015/11/consumer-review-freedom-act-ready-senate-still-good-law-few-problems">Most of them have been addressed</a> in the new bill, but the most disconcerting one remains.</p>
<p>If a company claims that a review is not “otherwise lawful” (for example, because it allegedly defames the company), then the law may permit the company to claim that it owns the copyright in the review and have it removed as copyright infringement, thus creating a shortcut for having speech removed. We don’t think this is what Congress intended, and we hope it’s not too late to remove the two offending words.</p>
<p>Imagine that I’m a vendor offering you a contract for a service. My contract includes a clause saying that you assign me the copyright in any review you write of my service. Under the CRFA, that clause would be invalid and my including it in the contract would be against the law. But if my contract says you assign me the copyright in any <i>unlawful</i> review you write, I could argue that that contract is valid under the CRFA.</p>
<p>We’re concerned that businesses could effectively use this language to bypass the traditional protections for allegedly illegal speech and instead rely on the censorship tools available to copyright owners. Filing a DMCA takedown notice is both easier and faster than convincing a judge that a piece of online speech is defamatory, especially because <i>sending a DMCA takedown doesn’t require you to prove anything</i>. A business could claim to be the copyright owner and get a review taken down without ever testing its claims in court.</p>
<p>Furthermore, transforming a different possible speech violation into a copyright infringement case brings the possibility of <a href="https://www.eff.org/wp/collateral-damages-why-congress-needs-fix-copyright-laws-civil-penalties">astronomical statutory damages</a>, penalties with no relation to any actual harm done by the alleged infringer. Lawmakers should think twice before opening a loophole that businesses could use to masquerade other speech complaints as copyright infringement complaints.</p>
<p>We wholeheartedly support the CRFA’s intentions. Anti-review contracts are an attack on customers’ freedom of speech and it’s gratifying to see lawmakers stand up to defend consumers. We hope that before the CRFA becomes law, Congress closes the dangerous loophole.</p>
</div></div></div>Thu, 22 Sep 2016 21:49:43 +000093068 at https://www.eff.orgLegislative AnalysisFair UseDMCAFree SpeechBloggers' RightsCyberSLAPPElliot HarmonHTML standardization group calls on W3C to protect security researchers from DRMhttps://www.eff.org/pt-br/node/93071
<div class="field field--name-body field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden"><div class="field__items"><div class="field__item even"><p>The World Wide Web Consortium has embarked upon <a href="http://boingboing.net/2016/07/08/as-browsers-decline-in-relevan.html">an ill-advised project to standardize Digital Rights Management (DRM) for video</a> at the behest of companies like Netflix; in so doing, they are, for the first time, making a standard whose implementations will be covered under anti-circumvention laws like Section 1201 of the DMCA, which makes it a potential felony to reveal defects in products without the manufacturer's permission.</p>
<p>This is especially worrisome because the W3C's aspiration for the new version of HTML is that it will replace apps as the user-interface for the Internet of Things, making all sorts of potentially compromising (and even lethal) bugs difficult to report without serious legal liability.</p>
<p>The EFF has proposed that W3C members should be required to <a href="https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2016/03/security-researchers-tell-w3c-protect-researchers-who-investigate-browsers">promise not to use the DMCA</a> and laws like it this way; this has had support from other multistakeholder groups, like the <a href="https://opensource.org/osr-drm">Open Source Initiative</a>, which has said that the W3C work will not qualify as an "open standard" if it doesn't do something to prevent DMCA abuse.</p>
<p>Now, another important body, WHATWG, has joined the chorus calling on the W3C to prevent their technical work from become a legal weapon. WHATWG is a breakaway web standards body, backed by all the major browser vendors, and much of the W3C's standardization process consists of snapshotting WHATWG's documents and putting W3C's stamp of approval on them.</p>
<p>In <a href="https://blog.whatwg.org/drm-and-web-security">an op-ed on the WHATWG blog</a>, Ian "Hixie" Hickson (who formerly oversaw HTML5 for the W3C, and now edits the HTML spec for WHATWG, while working for Google) calls on the W3C to adopt the rules protecting security research, saying "We can ill afford a chilling effect on Web browser security research. Browsers are continually attacked. Everyone who uses the Web uses a browser, and everyone would therefore be vulnerable if security research on browsers were to stop."</p>
<p>Hixie's letter is co-signed by fellow WHATWGers Simon Pieters from Opera, and Anne van Kesteren from Mozilla.</p>
<p>The charter for the W3C's DRM working group runs out in eight days and will have to be renewed. Some 20 W3C members have pledged to block any further renewal unless the W3C executive requires the group to solve this problem before finishing its work. The last time this happened, the executive dismissed these objections, but the numbers have swelled and now include prominent disabled rights groups like the UK Royal National Institute for Blind People and Media Access Australia, as well as a browser vendor, Brave.</p>
<p>A who's who of security researchers, including the W3C's own invited experts, have <a href="https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2016/03/security-researchers-tell-w3c-protect-researchers-who-investigate-browsers">signed an open letter</a> asking the W3C to ensure that control over disclosure of vulnerabilities in web browsers isn't given to the companies whom these disclosures might potentially embarrass.</p>
<p>From <a href="https://blog.whatwg.org/drm-and-web-security">Hixie's post</a>:</p>
<blockquote><p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_rights_management#Opposition_to_DRM">Much has been written</a><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>on how DRM is<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="https://www.eff.org/issues/drm">bad for users</a><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>because it prevents fair use, on how it is technically impossible to ever actually implement, on how it's actually a tool <a href="https://plus.google.com/+IanHickson/posts/iPmatxBYuj2">for controlling distributors</a>, a purpose for which it is working well (as opposed to being to prevent copyright violations, a purpose for which it<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20070207234839/http://www.apple.com/hotnews/thoughtsonmusic/">isn't working at all</a>), and on how it is literally an anti-accessibility technology (it is designed to make content less accessible, to prevent users from using the content as they see fit, even preventing them from using the content in ways that are otherwise legally permissible, e.g. in the US, for parody or criticism). Much has also been written about the W3C's hypocrisy in supporting DRM, and on how it is<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="http://freeculture.org/blog/2013/04/23/dont-let-the-myths-fool-you-the-w3cs-plan-for-drm-in-html5-is-a-betrayal-to-all-web-users/">a betrayal to all Web users</a>. It is clear that the W3C allowing DRM technologies to be developed at the W3C is just a naked ploy for the W3C to get more (paying) member companies to join. These issues all remain. Let's ignore them for the rest of post, though.</p>
<p>One of the<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><em>other</em><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>problems with DRM is that, since it can't work technically, DRM supporters have managed to get the laws in many jurisdictions changed to make it illegal to even attempt to break DRM. For example, in the US, there's the DMCA clauses 17 U.S.C. § 1201 and 1203: "No person shall circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title", and "Any person injured by a violation of section 1201 or 1202 may bring a civil action in an appropriate United States district court for such violation".</p>
<p>This has led to a chilling effect in the security research community, with scientists <a href="https://www.eff.org/pages/objection-rechartering-w3c-eme-group#examples">avoiding studying anything</a><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>that might relate to a DRM scheme, lest they be sued. The more technology embeds DRM, therefore, the less secure our technology stack will be, with each DRM-impacted layer getting fewer and fewer eyeballs looking for problems.</p>
<p>We can ill afford a chilling effect on Web browser security research. Browsers are continually attacked. Everyone who uses the Web uses a browser, and everyone would therefore be vulnerable if security research on browsers were to stop.</p>
<p>Since EME introduces DRM to browsers, it introduces this risk.</p>
<p>A<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="https://www.eff.org/pages/objection-rechartering-w3c-eme-group#covenant">proposal</a><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>was made to avoid this problem. It would simply require each company working on the EME specification to sign an agreement that they would not sue security researchers studying EME. The W3C already requires that members sign a similar agreement relating to patents, so this is a simple extension. Such an agreement wouldn't prevent members from suing for copyright infringement, it wouldn't reduce the influence of content producers over content distributors; all it does is attempt to address this even more critical issue that would lead to a reduction in security research on browsers.</p>
<p>The W3C is refusing to require this. We call on the W3C to change their mind on this. The security of the Web technology stack is critical to the health of the Web as a whole.</p>
<p>- Ian Hickson, Simon Pieters, Anne van Kesteren</p>
<p>Excerpt copyright (c) 2016 The WHATWG Contributors. Reproduced under the <a href="https://blog.whatwg.org/copyright">MIT License.</a></p></blockquote>
</div></div></div>Thu, 22 Sep 2016 15:44:08 +000093071 at https://www.eff.orgCommentaryDMCADRMCory DoctorowAnalog: The Last Defense Against DRMhttps://www.eff.org/pt-br/deeplinks/2016/09/analog-last-defense-against-drm
<div class="field field--name-body field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden"><div class="field__items"><div class="field__item even"><p><i>UPDATE (9/8/16): An earlier version of this blog post incorrectly suggested that no authorized audio devices or connectors that used the Lightning port existed prior to yesterday’s announcement. It also implied that the only way to achieve lossless sound quality on an iPhone was through a wired connection, which was also incorrect. We’ve edited the post accordingly.</i></p>
<p>With the recent iPhone 7 announcement, Apple confirmed <a href="http://www.stereogum.com/1893065/no-control-thoughts-on-the-end-of-the-headphone-jack-and-the-future-of-digital-music/franchises/but-whos-buying/?platform=hootsuite">what had already been widely speculated</a>: that <a href="https://www.engadget.com/2016/09/07/apple-airpods/">the new smartphone won’t have a traditional, analog headphone jack</a>. Instead, the only ways to connect the phone to an external headset or speaker will be via Bluetooth, through the phone’s <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AirPlay">AirPlay</a> feature, or through Apple’s proprietary <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lightning_(connector)">Lightning port</a>.</p>
<p>Apple’s motivations for abandoning the analog jack are opaque, but likely benign. Apple is obsessed with simple, clean design, and this move lets the company remove one more piece of clutter from the phone’s body. The decision may also have been a part of the <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/08/technology/apple-iphone.html">move to a water-resistant iPhone</a>. And certainly, many people choose a wireless listening experience.</p>
<p>But removing the port will change how a substantial portion of iPhone owners listen to audio content—namely, by simply plugging in a set of headphones. By switching from an analog signal to a digital one, Apple has potentially given itself more control than ever over what people can do with music or other audio content on an iPhone. We hope that Apple isn’t unwittingly opening the door to <a href="https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20160812/16502635229/why-apple-removing-audio-jack-iphone-would-be-very-very-very-bad-move.shtml">new pressures to take advantage of that power</a>.</p>
<p>When you plug an audio cable into a smartphone, it just works. It doesn’t matter whether the headphones were made by the same manufacturer as the phone. It doesn’t even matter what you’re trying to <i>do</i> with the audio signal—it works whether the cable is going into a speaker, a mixing board, or a recording device.</p>
<p>The Lightning port works differently. Manufacturers must <a href="https://developer.apple.com/programs/mfi/">apply</a> and <a href="http://www.theverge.com/2016/9/8/12839758/apple-is-biggest-winner-from-killing-headphone-jack">pay a licensing fee</a> to create a Lightning-compatible device. When rumors were circulating about an iPhone 7 with no headphone jack, our colleague Cory Doctorow predicted that <a href="https://boingboing.net/2016/08/12/how-a-digital-only-smartphone.html">big content companies would try to take advantage of that control</a>: “Right now, an insistence on DRM would simply invite the people who wanted to bypass it for legal reasons to use that 3.5mm headphone jack to get at it. Once that jack is gone, there's no legal way to get around the DRM.”</p>
<p>In other words, if it’s impossible to connect a speaker or other audio device to an iPhone without Apple software governing it, then major media companies might pressure Apple to place limits on how Apple’s customers can use their content. Because U.S. law protects digital rights management (DRM) technologies, it may be illegal to circumvent any potential restrictions, even if you’re doing it for completely lawful purposes. There would certainly be a precedent: big content companies <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20070207234839/http://www.apple.com/hotnews/thoughtsonmusic/">infamously pressured Apple</a> to incorporate DRM in its iTunes service.</p>
<p>iTunes DRM is a thing of the past now—and fortunately, most DRM for audio downloads has gone with it. But some <a href="https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2016/05/yes-all-drm">major media companies are still eager to find ways</a> to control how we use their content. In the current debate over the FCC’s proposal to unlock TV set-top boxes, TV and film producers have insisted that they should be able to <a href="https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2016/04/new-rules-pay-tv-set-top-boxes-are-about-innovation-and-competition-not-copyright">decide which devices can receive video</a>. Can we believe the content industry will leave audio alone if outputs become entirely digital?</p>
<p>The good news is that the new iPhone will come with a Lightning dongle that will provide a standard 3.5 mm analog port. What’s not clear is whether iOS or specific apps will be able to disable the dongle—if so, history suggests that <a href="https://www.publicknowledge.org/news-blog/blogs/do-not-adjust-your-television-mpaa-controllin">Hollywood and other major media industries will be eager to take advantage of that capability</a>. It’s also unclear whether the iPhone’s software will be able to disable access to the 3.5 mm port for other third-party devices that use it, such as credit card terminals or blood pressure readers.</p>
<p>To its credit, Apple has been adamant <a href="http://www.macrumors.com/2016/09/07/apple-explains-headphone-jack-removal/">it won’t use the new design to restrict your listening experience</a>. But therein lies the problem: you shouldn’t have to depend on a manufacturer’s permission to use its hardware however you like (or, for that matter, to build your own peripherals and accessories for it). What you can do with your hardware should be determined by the limits of the technology itself, not its manufacturers’ policy decisions.</p>
<p>Ultimately, this story isn’t about Apple, or any other company’s design decisions. It’s about the <a href="https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2016/07/research-and-remixes-law-wont-allow">Digital Millennium Copyright Act’s protection for DRM</a>. Section 1201 of the DMCA makes it illegal to bypass DRM or give others the means of doing so. 1201 gives technology manufacturers the power to cast clouds of legal uncertainty over common uses of their products. It gives content owners and other powerful entities an unfair weapon against innovation by others. It’s a law that needs fixing.</p>
</div></div></div>Thu, 08 Sep 2016 14:28:48 +000092908 at https://www.eff.orgCommentaryFair UseDMCACreativity & InnovationAnalog HoleDRMElliot HarmonEFF Asks Supreme Court To Review ‘Dancing Baby’ Copyright Case https://www.eff.org/pt-br/press/releases/eff-asks-supreme-court-review-dancing-baby-copyright-case
<div class="field field--name-field-pr-subhead field--type-text field--label-hidden"><div class="field__items"><div class="field__item even">Copyright Holders Must Be Held Accountable For Baseless Takedown Notices</div></div></div><div class="field field--name-body field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden"><div class="field__items"><div class="field__item even"><p class="MsoNormal">Washington, D.C.—The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) today filed a <a target="_blank" href="https://www.eff.org/document/petition-writ-lenz-v-universal">petition</a> <span>on behalf of its client Stephanie Lenz </span>asking the U.S. Supreme Court to ensure that copyright holders who make unreasonable infringement claims can be held accountable if those claims force lawful speech offline.</p>
<p><span>Lenz filed <a target="_blank" href="https://www.eff.org/cases/lenz-v-universal">the lawsuit</a> that came to be known as the “Dancing Baby” case after she </span><span>posted—back in 2007—a short <a target="_blank" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N1KfJHFWlhQ">video</a> on YouTube of her toddler son in her kitchen. The 29-second recording, which Lenz wanted to share with family and friends, shows her son bouncing along to the Prince song "Let's Go Crazy," which is heard playing in the background. </span><span>Universal Music Group, which owns the copyright to the Prince song, sent YouTube a notice under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (<a target="_blank" href="https://www.eff.org/wp/unintended-consequences-16-years-under-dmca">DMCA</a>), claiming that the family video was an infringement of the copyright.</span></p>
<p><span>EFF sued Universal on Lenz’s behalf, arguing that the company’s claim of infringement didn’t pass the laugh test and was just the kind of improper, abusive DMCA targeting of lawful material that so often threatens free expression on the Internet. The DMCA includes provisions designed to prevent abuse of the takedown process and allows people like Lenz to sue copyright holders for bogus takedowns.</span></p>
<p><span>The San Francisco-based U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit last year <a target="_blank" href="https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/01/lenz-v-universal-baby-may-be-dancing-trial-0">sided in part</a> with Lenz,<a target="_blank" href="https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2015/09/takedown-senders-must-consider-fair-use-ninth-circuit-rules"> ruling </a>that that copyright holders must consider fair use before sending a takedown notice. But the court also <a href="https://www.eff.org/document/ninth-circuit-amended-opinion">held</a> that copyright holders should be held to a purely subjective standard. In other words, senders of false infringement notices <a target="_blank" href="https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2016/03/dancing-baby-trial-back-another-mixed-ruling-lenz-v-universal">could be excused</a> so long as they subjectively believed that the material they targeted was infringing, <i>no matter how unreasonable that belief</i>. Lenz is asking the Supreme Court to overrule that part of the Ninth Circuit’s decision to ensure that the DMCA provides the protections for fair use that Congress intended.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“Rightsholders who force down videos and other online content for alleged infringement—based on nothing more than an unreasonable hunch, or subjective criteria they simply made up—must be held accountable,” said EFF Legal Director Corynne McSherry. “<span>If left standing, the Ninth Circuit’s ruling gives fair users little real protection against private censorship through abuse of the DMCA process</span>.”</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">For the brief:<br /><a target="_blank" href="https://www.eff.org/document/petition-writ-lenz-v-universal">https://www.eff.org/document/petition-writ-lenz-v-universal</a></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">For more on Lenz v. Universal:<br /><a target="_blank" href="https://www.eff.org/cases/lenz-v-universal">https://www.eff.org/cases/lenz-v-universal</a></p>
</div></div></div><div class="field field--name-field-contact field--type-node-reference field--label-above"><div class="field__label">Contact:&nbsp;</div><div class="field__items"><div class="field__item even"><div class="ds-1col node node--profile node--promoted view-mode-node_embed node--node-embed node--profile--node-embed clearfix">
<div class="">
<div class="field field--name-field-profile-first-name field--type-text field--label-hidden"><div class="field__items"><div class="field__item even">Corynne</div></div></div><div class="field field--name-field-profile-last-name field--type-text field--label-hidden"><div class="field__items"><div class="field__item even">McSherry</div></div></div><div class="field field--name-field-profile-title field--type-text field--label-hidden"><div class="field__items"><div class="field__item even">Legal Director</div></div></div><div class="field field--name-field-profile-email field--type-email field--label-hidden"><div class="field__items"><div class="field__item even"><a href="mailto:corynne@eff.org">corynne@eff.org</a></div></div></div> </div>
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</div></div></div>Fri, 12 Aug 2016 21:45:21 +000092640 at https://www.eff.orgKaren GulloDRM: You have the right to know what you're buying!https://www.eff.org/pt-br/node/92558
<div class="field field--name-body field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden"><div class="field__items"><div class="field__item even"><p>Today, the EFF and a coalition of organizations and individuals asked the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to explore fair labeling rules that would require retailers to warn you when the products you buy come locked down by DRM ("Digital Rights Management" or "Digital Restrictions Management"). </p>
<p>These digital locks train your computerized devices to disobey you when you ask them to do things the manufacturer didn't specifically authorize -- even when those things are perfectly legal. Companies that put digital locks on their products -- ebook, games and music publishers, video companies, companies that make hardware from printers to TVs to cat litter trays -- insist that DRM benefits their customers, by allowing the companies to offer products at a lower price by taking away some of the value -- you can "rent" an ebook or a movie, or get a printer at a price that only makes sense if you also have to buy expensive replacement ink.</p>
<p>We don't buy it. We think that the evidence is that customers don't much care for DRM (when was the last time you woke up and said, "Gosh, I wish there was a way I could do <em>less</em> with my games?"). <a href="http://boingboing.net/2014/07/19/drm-free-indie-ebooks-outsell.html">Studies agree</a>.</p>
<p>The FTC is in charge of making sure that Americans don't get ripped off when they buy things. We've written the Commission a <a href="https://www.eff.org/document/eff-letter-ftc-re-drm-labeling">letter</a>, drafted and signed by a diverse coalition of public interest groups, publishers, and rightsholders, calling on the agency to instruct retailers to inform potential customers of the restrictions on the products they're selling. In a <a href="https://www.eff.org/files/2016/08/06/eff_request_for_investigation_re_labeling_drm-limited_products.pdf">separate letter</a>, we detail the stories of 22 EFF supporters who unwittingly purchased DRM-encumbered products and later found themselves unable to enjoy their purchases (a travel guide that required a live internet connection to unlock, making it unreadable on holiday), or locked into an abusive relationship with their vendors (a cat litter box that only worked if resupplied with expensive detergent), or even had <em>other</em> equipment they owned rendered permanently inoperable by the DRM in a new purchase (for example, a game that "bricked" a customer's DVD-RW drive).</p>
<p>Now the FTC has been equipped with evidence that there are real harms, and that rightsholders are willing to have fair labeling practices, the FTC should act. And if the DRM companies are so sure that their customers love their products, why would they object?</p>
<p>EFF is currently <a href="https://www.eff.org/press/releases/eff-lawsuit-takes-dmca-section-1201-research-and-technology-restrictions-violate">suing the US government to invalidate Section 1201 of the DMCA</a>, a law that has been used to threaten research into the security risks of DRM and inhibit the development of products and tools that break digital locks -- again, even if the purpose is otherwise legal (like letting you read your books on an alternate reader, or put a different brand of perfume in your cat litter box). Until we win our lawsuit, people who buy DRM-locked products are unlikely to be rescued from their lock-in by add-ons that restore functionality to their property. That makes labeling especially urgent: it's bad enough to be stuck with product that is <a href="https://www.defectivebydesign.org/">defective by design</a>, but far worse if those defects can't be fixed without risking legal retaliation.</p>
<p>For the full letter to the FTC about labeling:<a href="https://www.eff.org/files/2016/08/05/eff_request_for_investigation_re_labeling_drm-limited_products.pdf"></a><br /><a target="_blank" href="https://www.eff.org/document/eff-letter-ftc-re-drm-labeling">https://www.eff.org/document/eff-letter-ftc-re-drm-labeling</a></p>
<p>For the full letter to the FTC with the stories of people who've been harmed by DRM they weren't informed of:<br /><a href="https://www.eff.org/files/2016/08/06/eff_request_for_investigation_re_labeling_drm-limited_products.pdf">https://www.eff.org/files/2016/08/06/eff_request_for_investigation_re_labeling_drm-limited_products.pdf</a></p>
</div></div></div>Fri, 05 Aug 2016 19:06:07 +000092558 at https://www.eff.orgAnnouncementDMCADRMCory DoctorowEFF to FTC: Online Retailers Must Label Products Sold with Digital Lockshttps://www.eff.org/pt-br/press/releases/eff-ftc-online-retailers-must-label-products-sold-digital-locks
<div class="field field--name-field-pr-subhead field--type-text field--label-hidden"><div class="field__items"><div class="field__item even">Consumers Need Warning If Movies, Music, Games Restrict When and How They Are Used</div></div></div><div class="field field--name-body field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden"><div class="field__items"><div class="field__item even"><p>San Francisco - The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and a coalition of consumer groups, content creators, and publishers asked the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) today to require online retailers to label the ebooks, songs, games, and apps that come with digital locks restricting how consumers can use them.<br />
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In a <a target="_blank" href="https://www.eff.org/document/eff-letter-ftc-re-drm-labeling">letter</a> sent to the FTC today, the coalition said companies like Amazon, Google, and Apple have a duty to inform consumers if products for sale are locked with some kind of "digital rights management" or <a target="_blank" href="https://www.eff.org/issues/drm">DRM</a>. Companies use DRM to purportedly combat copyright infringement, but <a target="_blank" href="https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2016/05/yes-all-drm">DRM locks</a> can also block you from watching the movie you bought in New York when you go to Asia on vacation, or limit which devices can play the <a target="_blank" href="https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2016/05/what-do-customers-think-theyre-getting-when-they-buy-media-online">songs you purchased</a>.<br />
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"Without DRM labeling, it’s nearly impossible to figure out which products have digital locks and what restrictions these locks impose," said EFF Special Advisor <a target="_blank" href="http://craphound.com/">Cory Doctorow</a>. "We know the public prefers DRM-free e-books and other electronic products, but right now buyers are in the dark about DRM locks when they go to make purchases online. Customers have a right to know about these restrictions before they part with their money, not after."<br />
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The letter is accompanied by a request that the FTC <a target="_blank" href="https://www.eff.org/document/eff-request-investigation-re-drm-labeling">investigate</a> and take action on behalf of consumers who find themselves deprived of the enjoyment of their property every day, due to a marketplace where products limited by DRM are sold without adequate notice. The request details the <a target="_blank" href="https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2016/03/ebooks-games-music-movies-and-internet-things-tell-us-your-drm-horror-stories">stories</a> of 20 EFF supporters who bought products—ebooks, videos, games, music, devices, even a cat-litter box—that came with DRM that caused them grief. They report that DRM left them with broken, orphaned, or useless devices and in some cases even incapacitated other devices.<br />
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The <a target="_blank" href="https://www.ftc.gov/">FTC</a> oversees fair packaging and labeling rules that are supposed to prevent consumers from being deceived and facilitate value comparisons. Today’s letter argues that the FTC should require electronic sellers to use a simple, consistent, and straightforward label about DRM locks for digital media. For example, "product detail" lists—which appear on digital product pages and disclose such basic information as serial number, file size, publisher, and whether certain technological features are enabled—should include a category stating whether a product is DRM-free or DRM-restricted. The latter designation should include a link to a clear explanation of the restrictions imposed on the product.<br />
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"The use of DRM is controversial among creators, studios, and audiences. What shouldn’t be controversial is the right of consumers to know which products have DRM locks. If car companies made vehicles that only drove on certain streets, they’d have to disclose this to consumers. Likewise, digital media products with DRM restrictions should be clearly labeled," said Doctorow.<br />
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Signers of today’s letter include the Consumer Federation of America, Public Knowledge, the Free Software Foundation, McSweeney’s, and No Starch Press.<br />
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For the full letter to the FTC about labeling:<a href="https://www.eff.org/files/2016/08/05/eff_request_for_investigation_re_labeling_drm-limited_products.pdf"></a><br /><a target="_blank" href="https://www.eff.org/document/eff-letter-ftc-re-drm-labeling">https://www.eff.org/document/eff-letter-ftc-re-drm-labeling</a></p>
<p>For the full letter to the FTC with the stories of people who've been harmed by DRM they weren't informed of:<a target="_blank" href="https://www.eff.org/files/2016/08/06/eff_request_for_investigation_re_labeling_drm-limited_products.pdf">https://www.eff.org/files/2016/08/06/eff_request_for_investigation_re_labeling_drm-limited_products.pdf</a></p>
</div></div></div><div class="field field--name-field-contact field--type-node-reference field--label-above"><div class="field__label">Contact:&nbsp;</div><div class="field__items"><div class="field__item even"><div class="ds-1col node node--profile node--promoted view-mode-node_embed node--node-embed node--profile--node-embed clearfix">
<div class="">
<div class="field field--name-field-profile-first-name field--type-text field--label-hidden"><div class="field__items"><div class="field__item even">Cory</div></div></div><div class="field field--name-field-profile-last-name field--type-text field--label-hidden"><div class="field__items"><div class="field__item even">Doctorow</div></div></div><div class="field field--name-field-profile-title field--type-text field--label-hidden"><div class="field__items"><div class="field__item even">EFF Special Advisor</div></div></div><div class="field field--name-field-profile-email field--type-email field--label-hidden"><div class="field__items"><div class="field__item even"><a href="mailto:doctorow@craphound.com">doctorow@craphound.com</a></div></div></div> </div>
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</div></div></div>Fri, 05 Aug 2016 17:24:05 +000092556 at https://www.eff.orgKaren GulloEFF at the Eleventh Hopehttps://www.eff.org/pt-br/deeplinks/2016/08/eff-eleventh-hope
<div class="field field--name-body field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden"><div class="field__items"><div class="field__item even"><p>Last weekend EFF took part in the Eleventh Hackers On Planet Earth (HOPE) conference in New York City and got to meet so many of our wonderful supporters. We've collected the HOPE talks given by EFF staff below, with the official program abstract, video, and where applicable, the original slides. Once you're done watching those, you can also try your hand at our Capture The Flag competition—the challenges are still up at <a href="https://eff-ctf.org">https://eff-ctf.org</a>, even though the contest is over.</p>
<h3>Keynote Address</h3>
<p><b>Cory Doctorow</b></p>
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Program abstract: We are so stoked to have Cory Doctorow as our keynote this year. We've been trying to get the stars to align for many HOPEs, and this time they did. But we're glad we waited until now, since so much has happened in the past few years that Cory has been on top of - Snowden, Manning, privacy, copyright issues, surveillance - and his talk will no doubt open your eyes even more. As co-editor of Boing Boing, special advisor to the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a prolific writer of both fiction and non-fiction, and a vocal proponent of changing our copyright laws, Cory really has a lot of super-important and relevant thoughts to share with our HOPE audience.</p>
<p>Slides: <a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BxbYd30UHZqHNGU2R2ZMWkppTmc/view" target="_blank">https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BxbYd30UHZqHNGU2R2ZMWkppTmc/view</a></p>
<p>Video: <a href="//livestream.com/internetsociety/hopeconf/videos/130727866" target="_blank"> http://livestream.com/internetsociety/hopeconf/videos/130727866</a></p>
<h3>Ask the EFF: The Year in Digital Civil Liberties</h3>
<p><b>Kurt Opsahl, Jacob Hoffman-Andrews, Vivian Brown, Parker Higgins</b></p>
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Program abstract: Get the latest information about how the law is racing to catch up with technological change from staffers at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the nation's premiere digital civil liberties group fighting for freedom and privacy in the computer age. This session will include updates on current EFF issues such as surveillance online, encryption (and backdoors), and fighting efforts to use intellectual property claims to shut down free speech and halt innovation. The panel will also include a discussion on their technology project to protect privacy and speech online, updates on cases and legislation affecting security research, and much more. Half the session will be given over to question-and-answer, so it's your chance to ask EFF questions about the law and technology issues that are important to you.</p>
<p>Video: <a href="http://livestream.com/internetsociety/hopeconf/videos/130646436" target="_blank">http://livestream.com/internetsociety/hopeconf/videos/130646436</a></p>
<h3>The Next Billion Certificates: Let's Encrypt and Scaling the Web PKI</h3>
<p><b>Jacob Hoffman-Andrews</b></p>
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Program abstract: Let's Encrypt is a free and automated certificate authority to encrypt the web, launched in December 2015. Jacob will explain why HTTPS is important to Internet freedom and the role certificate authorities play. He'll give an introduction to the ACME protocol that Let's Encrypt uses to automate validation and issuance, discuss Let's Encrypt's progress by the numbers, and outline some of its future plans.</p>
<p>Slides: <a href="https://jacob.hoffman-andrews.com/next-billion/#/" target="_blank">https://jacob.hoffman-andrews.com/next-billion/#/</a></p>
<p>Video: <a href="http://livestream.com/internetsociety/hopeconf/videos/130646436"> http://livestream.com/internetsociety/hopeconf/videos/130816207</a></p>
<h3>Privacy Badger and Panopticlick vs. the Trackers, Round 1</h3>
<p><b>William Budington, Cooper Quintin</b></p>
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Program abstract: Increasingly, as you navigate the web, your movements are being tracked. Even when you reject browser cookies, you transmit unique information that makes your browser personally identifiable. Ad tech and tracking companies are transforming the web into a platform where your user data is brokered and exchanged freely without your consent or even knowledge - and there is a true absence of limits to the methods trackers are willing to use to get that data from you. Luckily, there is hope. The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has been developing technologies that let you know exactly how much of this data you are giving out as you browse, as well as releasing tools to help you protect yourselves against the trackers. Panopticlick and Privacy Badger help you keep your personal data private - and this talk will show you how.</p>
<p>Slides: <a href="https://www.eff.org/files/privacy-badger-panopticlick-v-trackers.pdf" target="_blank">https://www.eff.org/files/privacy-badger-panopticlick-v-trackers.pdf</a></p>
<p>Video: <a href="http://livestream.com/internetsociety/hopeconf/videos/130646436">http://livestream.com/internetsociety/hopeconf/videos/130664570</a></p>
</div></div></div>Tue, 02 Aug 2016 21:10:37 +000092506 at https://www.eff.orgDMCADRMPrivacyDo Not TrackEncrypting the WebCooper QuintinResearch and Remixes the Law Won’t Allowhttps://www.eff.org/pt-br/deeplinks/2016/07/research-and-remixes-law-wont-allow
<div class="field field--name-body field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden"><div class="field__items"><div class="field__item even"><p><img src="/files/2016/07/18/1201-cases-5-og.jpg" alt="" width="650" />Some day, your life may depend on the work of a security researcher. Whether it’s a simple malfunction in a piece of computerized medical equipment or a malicious compromise of your networked car, it’s critically important that people working in security can find and fix the problem before the worst happens.</p>
<p>And yet, an expansive United States law, passed in 1998 and emulated in legal codes all over the world, casts a dark legal cloud over the work of those researchers. It gives companies a blunt instrument with which to threaten that research, keeping potentially embarrassing or costly errors from seeing the light of day.</p>
<p>That law is Section 1201 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Simply put, Section 1201 means that you can be sued or even jailed if you bypass digital locks on copyrighted works—from DVDs to software in your car—even if you are doing so for an otherwise lawful reason, like security testing.</p>
<p>It gets worse: Section 1201’s speech restrictions also apply to scholars, artists, and activists that are seeking to comment on culture or make it more accessible. The tools to make engaging remixes, annotations, or interactive commentaries are in the hands of more and more people, but the law has created <a href="https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2014/11/eff-asks-librarian-congress-help-correct-dmca-gotcha">a “gotcha” situation</a>: while using that source material is legal, getting access to it might run afoul of these additional legal hurdles.</p>
<p>You can seek an exemption from the law to exercise a limited range of your fair use rights, but the avenue to do so is managed by an unsympathetic gatekeeper: the Library of Congress. The Librarian, working with the Register of Copyrights, has turned an already-onerous exemption process into legal obstacle course. And even if you win, you still have to come back every three years to do it again.</p>
<p>The intent behind that law was to create legal backing for <a href="https://www.eff.org/issues/drm">DRM</a>—the software that adds restrictions to “content” like music, movies, and books. But over nearly two decades, as software that the law counts as a “copyrighted work” became embedded in everything from <a href="http://www.miamiherald.com/news/business/technology/article88653497.html">tractors</a> to light bulbs to <a href="http://www.miamiherald.com/news/business/technology/article88653497.html">kitty litter boxes</a>, the prohibition has become <a href="https://www.eff.org/pages/unintended-consequences-fifteen-years-under-dmca">best known for its unintended consequences</a>.</p>
<p>Those unintended consequences create a problem of constitutional scale. Congress has the power to create copyright laws that “promote the progress of science and the useful arts,” but when it interferes with the traditional contours of copyright law, including fair use protections, it intrudes on the First Amendment. Section 1201 represents just such an intrusion, one that cannot pass constitutional scrutiny.</p>
<p>EFF has filed a lawsuit today to address that constitutional issue, and we’ve gone into <a href="https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2016/07/section-1201-dmca-cannot-pass-constitutional-scrutiny">more depth about the legal questions at hand in a companion post</a>.</p>
<p>When Congress passed Section 1201, the hot-button copyright debates were about the terms under which people could copy and consume music, movies, and books. Those are important issues, and there is still work to do in getting the balance right for the producers, distributors, and consumers of those works—especially considering that, more than ever before, people jump between all those roles.</p>
<p>But while that work continues, copyright law shouldn’t be casting a legal shadow over activities as basic as popping the hood of your own car, offering commentary on a shared piece of culture (and helping others do so), and testing security infrastructure. It’s time for the courts to revisit Section 1201, and fix Congress’s constitutional mistake.</p>
</div></div></div><div class="field field--name-field-related-cases field--type-node-reference field--label-above"><div class="field__label">Related Cases:&nbsp;</div><div class="field__items"><div class="field__item even"><a href="/pt-br/cases/green-v-us-department-justice">Green v. U.S. Department of Justice</a></div></div></div>Thu, 21 Jul 2016 13:14:18 +000092383 at https://www.eff.orgFair UseDMCAParker HigginsSection 1201 of the DMCA Cannot Pass Constitutional Scrutinyhttps://www.eff.org/pt-br/deeplinks/2016/07/section-1201-dmca-cannot-pass-constitutional-scrutiny
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<p>Section 1201 of the <a href="http://eff.org/issues/dmca">Digital Millennium Copyright Act</a> forbids a wide range of speech, from remix videos that rely upon circumvention, to academic security research, to publication of software that can help repair your car or back up your favorite show. It potentially implicates the entire range of speech that relies on access to copyrighted works or describes flaws in access controls—even where that speech is clearly noninfringing.</p>
<p>At EFF, we’ve been worried about this law since before it was passed. We were counsel in <a href="https://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=5930508913825375010">one of the first major tests of the law</a>, but in those early days, we failed to convince the courts of its dangerous risk to speech. Ever since, we’ve documented those speech consequences. We’ve called on Congress to reform the law, to no avail. So today, we’re <a href="https://www.eff.org/document/1201-complaint">going to back to court</a>, armed with nearly twenty years of knowledge about Section 1201’s interference with lawful speech and with key Supreme Court cases that have been decided in that time. For more about the problems caused by this law, see <a href="https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2016/07/research-and-remixes-law-wont-allow">our companion post on the issue</a>.</p>
<p>Section 1201 was billed as a tool to prevent infringement by punishing those who interfered with technological restrictions on copyrighted works. After the DMCA was passed, the Supreme Court was asked to evaluate other overreaching copyright laws, and offered new guidance on the balance between copyright protections and free speech. It found that copyright rules can be consistent with the First Amendment so long as they adhere to copyright’s "traditional contours." These contours include fair use and the idea/expression dichotomy.</p>
<p>The dominant interpretation of Section 1201, however, can’t be squared with these First Amendment accommodations. As long as circumvention in furtherance of fair use risks civil damages or criminal penalties, Section 1201's barrier to noninfringing uses of copyrighted works oversteps the boundary set by the Supreme Court.<i>.</i></p>
<p>In First Amendment terms, the law is facially overbroad and therefore unconstitutional. By preventing valuable and noninfringing speech, it goes far beyond any restriction that might be justified by the purposes of copyright law.</p>
<p>Defenders of the law may point to the <a href="https://www.eff.org/issues/dmca-rulemaking">triennial exemption process</a>. But that rulemaking, which was intended as a protection for lawful speech, instead acts as an unconstitutional speech-licensing regime. To comply with the First Amendment, a speech-licensing regime must conform to strict safeguards to ensure that government officials issue timely permission according to strict standards, rather than exercising too much discretion.</p>
<p>The opportunity to seek government permission once every three years hardly provides for timely review, and in the most recent rulemaking, the government went so far as to claim that permission may be denied at the Librarian's discretion. It is also not enough to prove that you have the right to speak, the government demands that you show a widespread impact on others in a similar position, or you will be refused.</p>
<p>Section 1201 is a draconian and unnecessary restriction on speech and the time has come to set it aside. The future of cultural participation and software-related research depends on it.</p>
</div></div></div><div class="field field--name-field-related-cases field--type-node-reference field--label-above"><div class="field__label">Related Cases:&nbsp;</div><div class="field__items"><div class="field__item even"><a href="/pt-br/cases/green-v-us-department-justice">Green v. U.S. Department of Justice</a></div></div></div>Thu, 21 Jul 2016 13:14:05 +000092409 at https://www.eff.orgFair UseDMCAKit WalshEFF Lawsuit Takes on DMCA Section 1201: Research and Technology Restrictions Violate the First Amendmenthttps://www.eff.org/pt-br/press/releases/eff-lawsuit-takes-dmca-section-1201-research-and-technology-restrictions-violate
<div class="field field--name-field-pr-subhead field--type-text field--label-hidden"><div class="field__items"><div class="field__item even">Future of Technology and How It’s Used Is At Stake</div></div></div><div class="field field--name-body field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden"><div class="field__items"><div class="field__item even"><p class="MsoNormal">Washington D.C.—The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) sued the U.S. government today on behalf of technology creators and researchers to overturn onerous provisions of copyright law that violate the First Amendment.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">EFF’s <a target="_blank" href="https://www.eff.org/document/1201-complaint">lawsuit</a>, filed with co-counsel Brian Willen, Stephen Gikow, and Lauren Gallo White of Wilson Sonsini Goodrich &amp; Rosati, challenges the <a target="_blank" href="https://www.eff.org/issues/drm">anti-circumvention</a> and anti-trafficking provisions of the 18-year-old <a target="_blank" href="https://www.eff.org/issues/dmca">Digital Millennium Copyright Act</a> (<a href="https://www.eff.org/issues/dmca-rulemaking">DMCA</a>). These provisions—contained in Section 1201 of the DMCA—make it unlawful for people to get around the software that restricts access to lawfully-purchased copyrighted material, such as films, songs, and the computer code that controls vehicles, devices, and appliances. This ban applies even where people want to make noninfringing fair uses of the materials they are accessing.<span> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Ostensibly enacted to fight music and movie piracy, Section 1201 has long served to <a target="_blank" href="https://www.eff.org/files/2014/09/16/unintendedconsequences2014.pdf">restrict people’s ability</a> to access, use, and even speak out about copyrighted materials—including the software that is increasingly embedded in <a target="_blank" href="https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2015/01/who-will-own-internet-things-hint-not-users">everyday things</a>. The law imposes a legal cloud over <a target="_blank" href="https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2016/01/why-owning-your-stuff-means-owning-your-digital-freedom">our rights to tinker</a> with or repair the devices we own, to convert <a target="_blank" href="https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2015/11/new-dmca-ss1201-exemption-video-games-closer-look">videos</a> so that they can play on multiple platforms, remix a video, or conduct independent security research that would reveal dangerous security flaws in our computers, <a target="_blank" href="https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2015/07/jeep-hack-shows-why-dmca-must-get-out-way-vehicle-security-research">cars</a>, and <a target="_blank" href="//www.eff.org/deeplinks/2016/04/pacemakers-and-piracy-why-dmca-has-no-business-medical-implants">medical devices</a>. It criminalizes the creation of tools to let people access and use those materials.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Copyright law is supposed to exist in harmony with the First Amendment. But the prospect of costly legal battles or criminal prosecution stymies creators, academics, inventors, and researchers. In the complaint filed today in U.S. District Court in Washington D.C., EFF argues that this violates their First Amendment right to freedom of expression.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“The creative process requires building on what has come before, and the First Amendment preserves our right to transform creative works to express a new message, and to research and talk about the computer code that controls so much of our world,” said EFF Staff Attorney Kit Walsh. “Section 1201 threatens ordinary people with financial ruin or even a prison sentence for exercising those freedoms, and that cannot stand.”</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">EFF is representing plaintiff Andrew “<a target="_blank" href="http://www.bunniestudios.com/blog/">bunnie</a>” Huang, a prominent computer scientist and inventor, and his company Alphamax LLC, where he is developing devices for editing digital video streams. Those products would enable people to make innovative uses of their paid video content, such as captioning a presidential debate with a running Twitter comment field or enabling remixes of high-definition video. But using or offering this technology could run afoul of Section 1201.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“Section 1201 prevents the act of creation from being spontaneous,’’ said Huang. “Nascent 1201-free ecosystems outside the U.S. are leading indicators of how far behind the next generations of Americans will be if we don’t end this DMCA censorship. I was born into a 1201-free world, and our future generations deserve that same freedom of thought and expression.”</p>
<p><span>EFF is also representing plaintiff <a target="_blank" href="https://www.cs.jhu.edu/faculty/matthew-d-green/">Matthew Green</a>, a computer security researcher at Johns Hopkins University who wants to make sure that we all can trust the devices that we count on to communicate, underpin our financial transactions, and secure our most private medical information. Despite this work being vital for all Americans' safety, Green had to seek an exemption from the Library of Congress last year for his security research. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“The government cannot broadly ban protected speech and then grant a government official excessive discretion to pick what speech will be permitted, particularly when the rulemaking process is so onerous,” said Walsh. “If future generations are going to be able to understand and control their own machines, and to participate fully in making rather than simply consuming culture, Section 1201 has to go.”</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">For the complaint:<br /><a target="_blank" href="https://www.eff.org/document/1201-complaint">https://www.eff.org/document/1201-complaint</a></p>
</div></div></div><div class="field field--name-field-contact field--type-node-reference field--label-above"><div class="field__label">Contact:&nbsp;</div><div class="field__items"><div class="field__item even"><div class="ds-1col node node--profile view-mode-node_embed node--node-embed node--profile--node-embed clearfix">
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<div class="field field--name-field-profile-first-name field--type-text field--label-hidden"><div class="field__items"><div class="field__item even">Kit</div></div></div><div class="field field--name-field-profile-last-name field--type-text field--label-hidden"><div class="field__items"><div class="field__item even">Walsh</div></div></div><div class="field field--name-field-profile-title field--type-text field--label-hidden"><div class="field__items"><div class="field__item even">Staff Attorney</div></div></div><div class="field field--name-field-profile-email field--type-email field--label-hidden"><div class="field__items"><div class="field__item even"><a href="mailto:kit@eff.org">kit@eff.org</a></div></div></div> </div>
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<div class="field field--name-field-profile-first-name field--type-text field--label-hidden"><div class="field__items"><div class="field__item even">Adam</div></div></div><div class="field field--name-field-profile-last-name field--type-text field--label-hidden"><div class="field__items"><div class="field__item even">Schwartz</div></div></div><div class="field field--name-field-profile-title field--type-text field--label-hidden"><div class="field__items"><div class="field__item even">Senior Staff Attorney</div></div></div><div class="field field--name-field-profile-email field--type-email field--label-hidden"><div class="field__items"><div class="field__item even"><a href="mailto:adam@eff.org">adam@eff.org</a></div></div></div> </div>
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<div class="field field--name-field-profile-first-name field--type-text field--label-hidden"><div class="field__items"><div class="field__item even">Corynne</div></div></div><div class="field field--name-field-profile-last-name field--type-text field--label-hidden"><div class="field__items"><div class="field__item even">McSherry</div></div></div><div class="field field--name-field-profile-title field--type-text field--label-hidden"><div class="field__items"><div class="field__item even">Legal Director</div></div></div><div class="field field--name-field-profile-email field--type-email field--label-hidden"><div class="field__items"><div class="field__item even"><a href="mailto:corynne@eff.org">corynne@eff.org</a></div></div></div> </div>
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</div></div></div>Thu, 21 Jul 2016 12:58:49 +000092413 at https://www.eff.orgKaren GulloA Call to the Security Community: The W3C's DRM Extension Must Be Investigatedhttps://www.eff.org/pt-br/node/92186
<div class="field field--name-body field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden"><div class="field__items"><div class="field__item even"><p>The World Wide Web Consortium has <a href="http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-html-media/2016Jun/0036.html">published a "Candidate Recommendation" for Encrypted Media Extensions</a>, a pathway to DRM for streaming video.</p>
<p>A large community of security researchers and public interest groups have been alarmed by the security implications of baking DRM into the HTML5 standard. That's because DRM -- unlike all the other technology that the W3C has ever standardized — enjoys unique legal protection under a tangle of international laws, like the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act, Canada's Bill C-11, and EU laws that implement Article 6 of the EUCD.</p>
<p>Under these laws, companies can threaten legal action against researchers who circumvent DRM, even if they does so for lawful purposes, like disclosing security vulnerabilities. Last summer, a who's-who America's most esteemed security researchers <a href="http://copyright.gov/1201/2015/comments-020615/">filed comments with the US Copyright Office</a> warning the agency that they routinely discovered vulnerabilities in systems from medical implants to voting machines to cars, but were advised not to disclose those discoveries because of the risk of legal reprisals under Section 1201 of the DMCA.</p>
<p>Browsers are among the most common technologies in the world, with literally billions of daily users. Any impediment to reporting vulnerabilities in these technologies has grave implications. Worse: HTML5 is designed to provide the kind of rich interaction that we see in apps, in order to challenge apps' dominance as control systems for networked devices. That means browsers are now intended to serve as front-ends for pacemakers and cars and home security systems. Now more than ever, we can't afford any structural impediments to identification and disclosure of browser defects.</p>
<p>There is a way to reconcile the demands of browser vendors and movie studios with the security of the web: last year, we <a href="https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2016/06/w3c-eme-and-eff-frequently-asked-questions">proposed</a> an extension to the existing W3C policy on patents, which says that members are forbidden from enforcing their patent rights to shut down implementations of W3C standards. Under our proposal, this policy would also apply to legal threats under laws like the DMCA. Members would agree upon a mutually acceptable, binding covenant that forbade them from using the DMCA and its global analogs to attack security researchers who revealed defects in browsers and new entrants into the browser market.</p>
<p>So far, the W3C has <a href="http://boingboing.net/2016/06/18/w3c-drm-working-group-chairman.html">rejected this proposal</a>, despite <a href="https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2016/03/security-researchers-tell-w3c-protect-researchers-who-investigate-browsers">broad support from security and privacy professionals</a> around the world, and despite new evidence of the need to investigate technical flaws in the EME specification. In June, security researchers in Israel and Germany <a href="https://www.wired.com/2016/06/bug-chrome-makes-easy-pirate-movies/">revealed a showstopper bug</a> in Chrome's implementation and promised to look at Firefox, Safari and Edge next.</p>
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We will keep working to persuade the W3C to adopt our sensible proposal. In the meantime, we urge the security research community to subject all EME implementations to the closest possible scrutiny. The black hats who are already doing this are not bound by fear of the DMCA, and they are delighted to have an attack surface that white hats are not allowed to investigate in detail.</p>
<p>Even with this handicap, white hats discover serious vulnerabilities. Every discovery proves the need to let researchers examine the full scope of possible security flaws. If you are investigating a system or wish to disclose a flaw and need legal advice, please contact our <a href="mailto:info@eff.org">intake</a> address.</p>
</div></div></div>Wed, 13 Jul 2016 23:19:18 +000092186 at https://www.eff.orgCall To ActionDMCADRMSecurityCory DoctorowBig Win for User-Generated Content Hosts in Vimeo Casehttps://www.eff.org/pt-br/deeplinks/2016/06/big-win-user-generated-content-hosts-vimeo-case
<div class="field field--name-body field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden"><div class="field__items"><div class="field__item even"><p>The Second Circuit has released its long-awaited <a href="https://www.eff.org/document/capitol-v-vimeo-2nd-circuit-opinion">opinion</a> in <i>Capitol Records v. Vimeo</i>, fully vindicating Vimeo’s positions. EFF along with a coalition of advocacy groups, submitted a <a href="https://www.eff.org/document/amicus-brief-23">friend-of-the-court brief</a> in the case, <a href="https://www.eff.org/press/releases/record-label-lawsuit-could-jeopardize-online-content-communities">supporting Vimeo</a>.</p>
<p>The Second Circuit considered three important issues. First, whether a service provider could rely on the DMCA safe harbor when it came to pre-1972 sound recordings. Second, whether evidence of Vimeo employees watching certain well-known songs was enough to create “red flag” knowledge that the videos were infringing. And third, whether Vimeo was “willfully blind” to infringement occurring on its service.</p>
<p>For each of these issues, the Second Circuit ruled for Vimeo.</p>
<h3>The DMCA Safe Harbor Applies to Pre-1972 Sound Recordings</h3>
<p>In an important decision, the court held that the DMCA safe harbors apply to pre-1972 sounds recordings.</p>
<p>Pre-1972 sound recordings, “for reasons not easily understood,” are not subject to federal copyright laws, but instead are governed by a patchwork of state laws that provide varying degrees of protections and rights. Because these recordings fall under state law, the labels, relying on a supporting opinion from the Copyright Office, argued that the DMCA also did not apply.</p>
<p>The Second Circuit rejected the labels’ and the Copyright Office’s argument. It based its decision on the statutory text of the DMCA, which was supported by the policy goals the DMCA was intended to achieve. Specifically:</p>
<blockquote><p>To construe § 512(c) as leaving service providers subject to liability under state copyright laws for postings by users of infringements of which the service providers were unaware would defeat the very purpose Congress sought to achieve in passing the statute. Service providers would be compelled either to incur heavy costs of monitoring every posting to be sure it did not contain infringing pre-1972 recordings, or incurring potentially crushing liabilities under state copyright laws. It is not as if pre-1972 sound recordings were sufficiently outdated as to render the potential liabilities insignificant. </p></blockquote>
<h3>Some Employees Watching “Recognizable” Videos Isn’t Enough to Create Red Flag Knowledge</h3>
<p>In reaffirming <a href="https://www.eff.org/cases/viacom-v-youtube"><i>Viacom v. YouTube</i></a>, the Second Circuit clarified that the “reasonable person” standard incorporated into the red flag knowledge standard was an ordinary person, not someone with specialized knowledge of copyright law or music. The Second Circuit also clarified that the burden of showing red flag knowledge is on copyright holder, not on the service provider claiming the protections of the DMCA. That is:</p>
<blockquote><p>[A] showing by plaintiffs of no more than that some employee of Vimeo had some contact with a user-posted video that played all, or nearly all, of a recognizable song is not sufficient to satisfy plaintiffs’ burden of proof that Vimeo forfeited the safe harbor by reason of red flag knowledge with respect to that video.</p></blockquote>
<p>The Second Circuit sent this part of the case back to the district court to determine whether the plaintiffs could “point to evidence sufficient to carry [plaintiffs’] burden of proving that Vimeo personnel either knew the video was infringing or knew facts making that conclusion obvious to an ordinary person who had no specialized knowledge of music or the laws of copyright.” If the plaintiffs can’t show that, Vimeo can’t be said to have “red flag” knowledge of infringement.</p>
<h3>Vimeo Was Not Willfully Blind</h3>
<p>Finally, the Second Circuit upheld the lower court’s finding that Vimeo was not willfully blind to infringement on its platform, so as to remove DMCA safe harbor protections. The rightsholders had argued that Vimeo was willfully blind to infringement based on three facts: Vimeo monitored videos for infringement of video content (but not audio content); Vimeo had a duty to investigate further once it learned facts that made would make it suspicious of infringement; and Vimeo itself encouraged infringement, thus couldn’t “close its eyes” to resulting infringement.</p>
<p>Each of these arguments was rejected by the Second Circuit. The Court held that (1) there was no duty to monitor for infringement, (2) that suspicion of infringement wasn’t enough unless infringement was obvious, and (3) a few sporadic videos out of millions where Vimeo employees “inappropriately” encouraged users to post infringing videos was insufficient to remove the DMCA safe harbor protections, especially where the videos did not relate to the videos at issue in the lawsuit.</p>
<p>The Second Circuit's finding that Vimeo didn't have a duty to investigate is important and essential to an open Internet that includes user-generated content. A duty to investigate would place a significant burden on small companies and non-commercial hosts, making it less likely that a new company could compete with those already entrenched in the market, or a non-commercial host can survive. More broadly, however, we're concerned about how often companies get hauled into court to challenge their safe harbors or worse. This ruling protects Vimeo, but it is disappointing that it took several years, and surely several million dollars, to get there.</p>
</div></div></div><div class="field field--name-field-related-cases field--type-node-reference field--label-above"><div class="field__label">Related Cases:&nbsp;</div><div class="field__items"><div class="field__item even"><a href="/pt-br/cases/capitol-v-vimeo">Capitol v. Vimeo</a></div></div></div>Thu, 16 Jun 2016 19:47:18 +000092077 at https://www.eff.orgLegal AnalysisFair UseDigital VideoDMCACreativity & InnovationVera RanieriW3C, EME and EFF: Frequently Asked Questionshttps://www.eff.org/pt-br/node/91938
<div class="field field--name-body field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden"><div class="field__items"><div class="field__item even"><h2>What is EFF worried about?</h2>
<p class="western">The W3C effort to standardize Encrypted Media Extensions (EME, part of the Media Extensions Working Group) marks a new era in W3C standardization. For the first time, implementations of a W3C standard will be covered by "anti-circumvention" laws such as the Section 1201 of the US DMCA; European laws that implement Article 6 of the EUCD; and Canada's Bill C-11.</p>
<p class="western">These laws have been used by companies and rightsholders to threaten security and privacy researchers who came forward to report defects in their products. These laws may also create legal risks for entities who independently implement EME-compatible systems.</p>
<h2 class="western">What is EFF proposing?</h2>
<p class="western">Last year, EFF opposed renewal of the EME Working Group unless its charter was modified to require WG members to agree not to use the DMCA or laws like it to attack security researchers or independent implementers of the specification. <a href="https://www.eff.org/pages/objection-rechartering-w3c-eme-group">Enough W3C members endorsed the proposed change</a> that the charter could not be renewed. After 90 days' worth of discussion, the working group had made significant progress, but had not reached consensus. The W3C executive ended this process and renewed the working group's charter until September.</p>
<p class="western">EFF is now proposing that the group's charter not be renewed in September unless an exit condition is added to the group's work.</p>
<p class="western">This exit condition is for the group to continue its work on arriving at a consensus agreement on protecting security disclosure and independent reimplementation, reflecting a compromise that all parties can live with.</p>
<h2 class="western">Is EME DRM?</h2>
<p class="western">EME is intended as one component of a two-component system, the other being a Content Decryption Module (CDM). Some working group members argue that EME -- that is, the part the W3C is specifying -- is not DRM, and wouldn't be covered under the DMCA and other statutes.</p>
<p class="western">We're skeptical of this claim. First, there are minor variations in implementations of the relevant statutes, and many of them have very thin litigation history, meaning that their exact contours are as yet to be determined. There's a lot on the line here: liability for competitive new entrants and for those who make the web more secure for users. It's worth taking measures to mitigate those risks.</p>
<p class="western">There's also the matter of EME's intended purpose: the members who advocate for EME clearly intend it to be used in DRM. There is no useful role for EME without a DRM system, and no one would be working on EME if it wasn't for its usefulness in DRM applications.</p>
<p class="western">No one will be able to say for sure whether courts will view EME as DRM, but based on decades of history litigating DMCA cases, we think there's a signficant chance they will.</p>
<h2 class="western">Why defend piracy?</h2>
<p class="western">Even the most expansive version of a DMCA nonaggression covenant -- one where members simply agreed to <em>never</em> invoke DMCA 1201-like laws -- would have no impact on the ability of rightsholders to pursue claims against people who commit copyright infringement. They would still be able to take criminal and civil action for creating and facilitating the creation of unauthorized copies; for violations of terms of service, for tortious interference and all the other statutes in which legislatures have explicitly given rights to creators and their investors to control their copyrighted works.</p>
<p class="western">Laws like DMCA 1201 allow companies to convert their commercial preferences into legal obligations. For example, no statute prohibits shifting the color gamut of a video stream to adapt it for use by color-blind people, but if you have to bypass EME to do this, the company gets a right of action against you. If the W3C standardizes a DRM without protections for interoperability and security, they're handing companies the ability to make up laws that governments will enforce for them, even though no legislature ever debated or enacted those laws.</p>
<p class="western">Here's a list of some of the things that will be off-limits once EME is finalized, if no action is taken to defuse laws like the DMCA:</p>
<p class="western"><a href="https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2016/03/interoperability-and-w3c-defending-future-present">https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2016/03/interoperability-and-w3c-defending-future-present</a></p>
<h2 class="western">Doesn't the Copyright Office ruling solve this problem?</h2>
<p class="western">In 2015, EFF and many other entities -- companies, scholars, academics, technologists, advocates -- petitioned the US Copyright Office for exemptions to section 1201 of the DMCA, many of which were granted, including one that offers limited protection to security researchers. This is important recognition from an expert agency in the US government that the DMCA poses real problems for security research and user safety.</p>
<p class="western">But the exemption does not relieve the risk that EME poses to the web.</p>
<p class="western">First, it only takes effect in October 2016, and only lasts for two years.</p>
<p class="western">Second, it only covers the act of bypassing a DRM like EME, but not the creation or sharing of tools or knowledge that allow researchers to replicate and independently verify this feat (the Copyright Office believes it lacks the authority to grant this kind of exemption).</p>
<p class="western">Finally, it applies solely to the USA, while anti-circumvention laws have proliferated all over the world, largely thanks to the efforts of the US Trade Representative.</p>
<h2 class="western">What about bug bounties?</h2>
<p class="western">Could we just solve the problem for security researchers by having companies offer bug bounties and other programs that provide a path to disclosure?</p>
<p class="western">Bug bounties and other managed disclosure systems are fantastic ideas and EFF applauds W3C members who choose to implement them. If all the working group members wanted to commit to such a system, we'd be delighted. But we believe that it's not our place to tell members how they must spend their money or manage their users.</p>
<p class="western">We favor the much more modest solution of allowing security researchers and implementers to freely negotiate the terms of disclosure. For such a negotiation to take place, we first need to ensure that companies can't unilaterally censor embarrassing reports of defects in their products by invoking laws like the DMCA.</p>
<h2 class="western">Why don't you get rid of these bad laws?</h2>
<p class="western">The problem here is the DMCA and laws like it, and we favor reforming those laws, something that has widespread support, including support from Tim Berners-Lee.</p>
<p class="western">We have worked for many years to make this happen, and this year has been a good one for the project: both the US Congress and the US Copyright Office have held proceedings to hear arguments for reforming anticircumvention law.</p>
<p class="western">But this is a process of years, and the web moves faster than the speed of law. Until such time as statutory reform can be accomplished around the world, the W3C can insulate web users from its most dangerous and anti-competitive effects.</p>
<p class="western">What's more, the adoption of a W3C rule taking DMCA abuse off the table is itself powerful evidence that the law is in need of reform. That is, by taking this step, the W3C brings us closer to legal reform.</p>
<p class="western">Even if legal reform never arrives -- or if it's a long time coming -- the protection the W3C extends to the web by adopting a rule limiting DMCA abuse stands on its own as an important step with usefulness from day one.</p>
</div></div></div>Mon, 06 Jun 2016 18:40:22 +000091938 at https://www.eff.orgDMCADRMCory DoctorowEFF at Copyright Office Roundtables Tuesday and Wednesday in San Franciscohttps://www.eff.org/pt-br/press/releases/user-advocates-auto-manufacturers-and-studios-debate-impact-copyright-law-internet
<div class="field field--name-field-pr-subhead field--type-text field--label-hidden"><div class="field__items"><div class="field__item even">User Advocates, Tech Companies, and Studios Debate Impact of Copyright Law on the ‘Internet of Things’</div></div></div><div class="field field--name-body field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden"><div class="field__items"><div class="field__item even"><p class="MsoNormal">San Francisco—On Tuesday and Wednesday, May 24-25, Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) Staff Attorney Kit Walsh and Senior Staff Attorney Mitch Stoltz will participate in public <a target="_blank" href="http://www.copyright.gov/policy/software/ca-agenda.pdf">roundtable</a> <a target="_blank" href="http://www.copyright.gov/policy/1201/public-roundtable/ca-agenda.pdf">discussions</a> about the impact of U.S. copyright law on freedoms to investigate and improve the software embedded in everyday products, devices, and appliances.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">T<span>he discussions, being held at University of California Hastings College of the Law in San Francisco, are hosted by the U.S. Copyright Office, which is studying copyright issues related to the <a target="_blank" href="https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2015/01/who-will-own-internet-things-hint-not-users">“Internet of Things”</a> and the consequences of Section 1201 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (</span><a target="_blank" href="https://www.eff.org/issues/dmca"><span><span class="MsoHyperlink"><span>DMCA</span></span></span></a><span>). Section 1201, while intended to prevent infringement of copyrighted media, has also <a target="_blank" href="https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2016/01/why-owning-your-stuff-means-owning-your-digital-freedom">blocked people</a> from accessing software that controls everything from their mobile phones and video games to cars and insulin pumps.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span>Section 1201 was enacted to combat copyright infringement of digital works by making it unlawful to circumvent access controls on those works, such as the encryption on a DVD. Because of the broad definition of a copyrighted work, however, Section 1201 gives legal teeth to manufacturers who want to lock product owners out of the ability to tinker with, repair, or modify their own software-enabled devices. The restrictions have also prevented independent researchers from evaluating the <a target="_blank" href="https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2015/10/victory-users-librarian-congress-renews-and-expands-protections-fair-uses">software in cars</a> and other devices for impacts on security, safety, privacy, and even the environment.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span>At the roundtable discussions, Walsh will speak about how overly-broad copyright restrictions on everyday products combine with one-sided end user <a target="_blank" href="https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2016/01/why-owning-your-stuff-means-owning-your-digital-freedom">license agreements</a> to frustrate user freedom, research, and innovation. Stoltz will speak about Section 1201's overreaching restriction on circumventing technologies that control devices and products, and the burdensome, every-three-year procedure to get <a target="_blank" href="https://www.eff.org/issues/dmca-rulemaking">exemptions</a> from Section 1201.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span>What:<br />
U.S. Copyright Office Roundtables for Software-Enabled Computer Products and Section 1201 Studies</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span>Who:<br />
EFF Staff Attorney Kit Walsh<br />
EFF Senor Staff Attorney Mitch Stoltz</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span>When:<br />
Tuesday, May 24, 9 am to 2:45 pm<br />
Wednesday, May 25, 9 am to 4:15 pm</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span>Where:<br />
UC Hastings College of the Law<br />
Alumni Reception Center<br /></span><span>200 McAllister St.<br />
San Francisco, CA 94102</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span> </span></p>
</div></div></div><div class="field field--name-field-contact field--type-node-reference field--label-above"><div class="field__label">Contact:&nbsp;</div><div class="field__items"><div class="field__item even"><div class="ds-1col node node--profile view-mode-node_embed node--node-embed node--profile--node-embed clearfix">
<div class="">
<div class="field field--name-field-profile-first-name field--type-text field--label-hidden"><div class="field__items"><div class="field__item even">Kit</div></div></div><div class="field field--name-field-profile-last-name field--type-text field--label-hidden"><div class="field__items"><div class="field__item even">Walsh</div></div></div><div class="field field--name-field-profile-title field--type-text field--label-hidden"><div class="field__items"><div class="field__item even">Staff Attorney</div></div></div><div class="field field--name-field-profile-email field--type-email field--label-hidden"><div class="field__items"><div class="field__item even"><a href="mailto:kit@eff.org">kit@eff.org</a></div></div></div> </div>
</div>
</div><div class="field__item odd"><div class="ds-1col node node--profile view-mode-node_embed node--node-embed node--profile--node-embed clearfix">
<div class="">
<div class="field field--name-field-profile-first-name field--type-text field--label-hidden"><div class="field__items"><div class="field__item even">Mitch</div></div></div><div class="field field--name-field-profile-last-name field--type-text field--label-hidden"><div class="field__items"><div class="field__item even">Stoltz</div></div></div><div class="field field--name-field-profile-title field--type-text field--label-hidden"><div class="field__items"><div class="field__item even">Senior Staff Attorney</div></div></div><div class="field field--name-field-profile-email field--type-email field--label-hidden"><div class="field__items"><div class="field__item even"><a href="mailto:mitch@eff.org">mitch@eff.org</a></div></div></div> </div>
</div>
</div></div></div>Fri, 20 May 2016 20:22:59 +000091742 at https://www.eff.orgKaren GulloAn Open Letter to Members of the W3C Advisory Committeehttps://www.eff.org/pt-br/node/91596
<div class="field field--name-body field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden"><div class="field__items"><div class="field__item even"><p>Dear member of the World Wide Web Consortium's Advisory Committee,</p>
<p>You may have heard that over the past year <a href="https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2016/03/drm-non-aggression-table-w3c">we've been trying to insert legal safeguards into the Encrypted Media Extensions project at the W3C</a>, which standardizes streaming video DRM. We've previously been opposed to the W3C adopting EME, because of the legal issues around DRM, and because DRM requires user agents to obey third parties, rather than their owners.</p>
<p>However, we think that there's a compromise that both DRM advocates and opponents should be able to live with.</p>
<p>I'm writing today to see if you will support us in an upcoming W3C vote on the charter of the Media Extensions Group, where we will be proposing this compromise.</p>
<p>This letter briefly describes briefly the problem, our proposed solution, and what you can do to help.</p>
<h2>The Problem</h2>
<p>Our major problem with DRM is legal, not technical. In the USA, <a href="https://www.eff.org/pages/unintended-consequences-fifteen-years-under-dmca">section 1201 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) forbids breaking DRM</a>, even for lawful purposes, and gives companies the legal tools to threaten and silence security researchers who discover defects in their products (because disclosure of a defect might help people break the DRM).</p>
<p>Neither of these legal effects are good for open standards (<a href="https://opensource.org/osr-drm">you don't have to take our word for it</a>).</p>
<p>Giving vendors the power to silence security researchers doesn't make users safer -- it just makes vulns last longer in the wild, exploitable by bad guys (from autocratic state security services to organized crime).</p>
<p>Equally significant in the world of open standards is protecting interoperability. The normal course of things in technology is that one company may make a product that interoperates with another company's products, provided that they don't violate a patent or engage in some other illegal conduct. But once DRM is in the mix, interoperability is only legal with permission.</p>
<p>Here's an example: if the W3C defines a data-type, anyone can make a user-agent that can receive and render that data. The people designing user agents might do things that the people running the servers disapprove of (for example, blocking pop-up ads), but that's not illegal -- so long as you don't break the law, the company serving the data can't dictate how the companies making the clients must handle it.</p>
<p>With EME, and for the first time in W3C history, a protocol is being designed explicitly to allow companies who serve data to use the law to shut down companies that render it, even if they do not infringe copyright. Features as simple as a pause button, or time-shifting, or even changing the gamut to adapt to color blindness <a href="https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2016/03/interoperability-and-w3c-defending-future-present">can't be undertaken without permission from the companies serving the video, without falling afoul of the DMCA.</a></p>
<p>Not just the DMCA, either. The US Trade Representative has made adopting DMCA-like anticircumvention rules a condition of trade with the USA in most of the world.</p>
<h2>Our Solution</h2>
<p>We've proposed a simple solution, patterned after <a href="https://www.w3.org/Consortium/Patent/">the existing W3C patent policy</a>. The patent policy doesn't take a position on whether patents are good or bad, but it does hold that standards are more open if you don't have to license a patent to implement them, so W3C members are required to promise not to sue others for practicing their patents when implementing W3C recommendations.</p>
<p>Our proposal does the same thing, except for anti-circumvention rights (rather than patents). Members who participate in the Media Extensions Working Group will have to make <a href="https://www.eff.org/pages/objection-rechartering-w3c-eme-group">a legally binding promise</a> not to use anti-circumvention laws to aggress against security researchers or implementers.</p>
<p>All other rights and causes of action -- trade secrecy, copyright, tortious interference, breach of contract -- are intact. We <a href="https://www.eff.org/document/list-1201-threats">did a survey of US case-law on anti-circumvention</a> and all the cases in our survey could have proceeded even if the private plaintiff was a party to our covenant -- so we're not proposing to take away any of the legal rights businesses are depending on for legitimate business, only for threats and chilling effects.</p>
<h2>What We Want From You</h2>
<p>The Media Extensions Working Group has had its charter renewed until September, and it's unlikely that EME will be ready to be a recommendation by then. The last charter renewal was controversial, with <a href="https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2016/01/you-cant-destroy-village-save-it-w3c-vs-drm-round-two">a diverse group of members objecting to the renewal</a> unless the covenant was made a condition of participation.</p>
<p>For the next extension, we're building a coalition of W3C members who will ask that the charter only be renewed with a mutually agreed-upon covenant as an exit condition.</p>
<p>Will your organization commit to objecting to the renewal in September, unless a nonaggression covenant is added as an exit-condition?</p>
<p>I would love to discuss this further with you, either by <a href="mailto:cory@eff.org">email</a> or on the phone, if you prefer. In the meantime, here's some links with more detail:</p>
<ul><li><a href="https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2016/03/drm-non-aggression-table-w3c">History of EME and the covenant at the W3C</a> </li>
<li><a href="https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2016/03/interoperability-and-w3c-defending-future-present">Interoperability use-cases blocked by EME</a> </li>
<li><a href="https://opensource.org/osr-drm">Open Source Initiative on covenants in EME-like standards</a> </li>
<li><a href="https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2016/03/security-researchers-tell-w3c-protect-researchers-who-investigate-browsers">Security researchers who support this proposal</a> </li>
</ul><p>Sincerely,</p>
<p>Cory Doctorow<br />
Representative to the W3C Advisory Committee for the Electronic Frontier Foundation</p>
</div></div></div>Thu, 12 May 2016 17:26:56 +000091596 at https://www.eff.orgCall To ActionDMCADRMCory Doctorow YouTube’s Copyright Robots Help Sony Shake Down Bluegrass Educatorshttps://www.eff.org/pt-br/deeplinks/2016/05/youtubes-copyright-robots-help-sony-shake-down-bluegrass-educators
<div class="field field--name-body field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden"><div class="field__items"><div class="field__item even"><p class="western">A series of bluegrass history lectures has become the latest victim of the bullying that is enabled by content filtering systems like YouTube’s <a href="https://www.eff.org/issues/intellectual-property/guide-to-youtube-removals">Content ID</a>. </p>
<p class="western">The <a href="https://www.eff.org/issues/dmca">Digital Millennium Copyright Act’s</a> safe harbors protect websites like YouTube, Vimeo, Twitter, and many others against runaway copyright lawsuits. They also protect people’s fair use rights when they post their own creations online, by ensuring that online platforms don’t have to assume the risk of a user’s fair use case going the wrong way. But automated filtering and takedown systems on platforms like <a href="https://www.eff.org/issues/intellectual-property/guide-to-youtube-removals">YouTube</a>—systems that the DMCA doesn’t require—flag obvious fair uses as potential infringement, including educational work around the history of music itself. That’s why it’s alarming that major entertainment companies want Congress to <a href="https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2016/01/notice-and-stay-down-really-filter-everything">scrap</a> the DMCA’s safe harbor and make automatic filtering the law.</p>
<p class="western"></p>
<p class="western">The <a href="http://hvbluegrass.org/">Hudson Valley Bluegrass Association</a> was founded “to knit together the bluegrass community of musicians and fans.” Besides hosting jam sessions and concerts, the non-profit association gives <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TvRZjTChMGc">lectures</a> on the history of this American art form. These “Evolution of Bluegrass” lectures, which take place in a classroom in Poughkeepsie, New York, are also <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TvRZjTChMGc">posted</a> to YouTube for others to learn from. As you might expect from lectures on music history, these hour-long sessions include many short music clips, typically of about 30 seconds, played over still images of bluegrass musicians and surrounded by commentary. </p>
<p class="western"></p>
<p class="western">HVBA’s use of clips from old bluegrass recordings is a clear fair use under copyright law. The clips are short, the purpose of the videos is educational, and the group does not earn money from its videos. Plus, no one is likely to forego buying the complete recordings simply because they heard a clip in the middle of an hour-long lecture. </p>
<p class="western"></p>
<p class="western">Still, HVBA’s videos have repeatedly been caught up by YouTube’s automatic filters, which are known as <a href="https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/2797370?hl=en">Content ID</a>. Most of the matches came from Sony Music and its subsidiaries. This had several consequences for HVBA: ominous warnings from YouTube, the lecture videos being blocked in various countries, and HVBA making numerous entreaties to the record labels to withdraw the Content ID matches. Mostly, they did.</p>
<p class="western"></p>
<p class="western">But the situation changed this year. When HVBA’s webmaster emailed Sony Music to explain that the use of music clips in the lecture videos was fair use, Sony’s representative responded that the label had “a new company policy that uses such as yours be subject to a minimum $500 license fee,” and that “if you are going to upload more videos we are going to have to follow our protocol.” Sony’s representative <i>didn’t</i> say that she believed the video was not a fair use. Instead, she implied that even a fair use would require payment, and that Sony would keep using YouTube’s Content ID system against HVBA until they paid up.</p>
<p class="western"></p>
<p class="western">This is absurd. When using copyrighted material qualifies as a fair use, the user doesn’t need to get a license, permission, or to pay a fee. This exchange suggests that Sony’s representative didn’t know the law, or else knew it full well but tried to coerce HVBA into paying anyway. The Content ID system simply funneled a fair user like HVBA into this misleading exchange with Sony.</p>
<p class="western"></p>
<p class="western">Content ID is not the law—yet. It’s a private system set up between YouTube and major entertainment companies like Sony Music, and it exists outside of the regular notice-and-takedown process created by the DMCA’s safe harbor provisions. But the titans of entertainment, and some of their friends in government, want that to change. At Congressional <a href="https://judiciary.house.gov/hearing/section-512-of-title-17/">hearings</a> and in formal <a href="https://www.regulations.gov/#!docketBrowser;rpp=25;so=ASC;sb=title;po=0;dct=PS;D=COLC-2015-0013;refD=COLC-2015-0013-0002">comments</a>, they have asked Congress to throw out the DMCA’s safe harbor and replace it with something like Content ID on steroids: a law that would require every website and service to match user-posted material against every takedown request ever sent, and then block anything that matches, or even prevent them being uploaded at all.<br /></p>
<p class="western"></p>
<p class="western">Changing notice-and-takedown into notice-and-censor would be a <a href="https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2016/02/content-id-and-rise-machines">disaster</a> for Internet users because, as HVBA’s experience shows, computers are terrible at identifying fair use. If automatic copyright filters become a legal requirement for every user-content website, more people like HVBA will be forced to run a gauntlet of permissions, appeals, and mistakes, just to communicate their own creative works and educational materials. Many, like HVBA, could be pressured to pay licensing fees for uses that require none. Congress needs to preserve and strengthen the safe harbors, not scrap them for a speech-chilling, notice-and-censor approach.</p>
<p class="western"></p>
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</div></div></div>Wed, 11 May 2016 21:00:40 +000091631 at https://www.eff.orgCommentaryDMCAFixing Copyright? The 2013-2016 Copyright Review ProcessMitch StoltzSave Firefox!https://www.eff.org/pt-br/node/91219
<div class="field field--name-body field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden"><div class="field__items"><div class="field__item even"><p><img src="/files/2016/04/13/drm-firefox2.png" width="600" /></p>
<p>Once upon a time, there were two major browsers that virtually everyone used: Netscape and Internet Explorer, locked in a death-battle for the future of the Web. They went to enormous lengths to tempt Web publishers to optimize their sites to work best inside their windows, and hoped that users would follow.</p>
<p>Then, a game-changer: the open, nonprofit Mozilla browser spun out of Netscape, with the mission of putting users, not publishers, in charge. Mozilla defaulted to blocking pop-up ads, the scourge of the early Web. It was a step none of the major browsers could afford to take, because publishers were convinced they would go broke without them, and any company whose browser blocked pop-ups by default would alienate the publishers, who'd throw their lot in with the competition.</p>
<p>A little over a decade later, and the world of browsers is unrecognizable: Mozilla turned into Firefox; Internet Explorer turned into Edge, Apple launched Safari, and Google launched Chrome. Every one of them blocks pop-ups by default! Literally <em>none</em> of the dominant browsers from a decade ago are in widespread use today.</p>
<p>Which is not to say that there isn't competition. There is, and its as fierce as ever, and as ever, it's a strategic fight to please both publishers and users, whose interests are not always the same. Publishers want to gather more information on users; users want to keep their information private. Publishers want to control users' browsing and viewing experience; users want to sit in the driver's seat.</p>
<p>We need competition; we also need diversity. We need the possibility that young, game-changing market entrants might come along. We need that idea to be kept alive, to make sure that all the browsers don't shift from keeping users happy to just keeping a few giant corporations that dominate the Web happy. Because there's always pressure to do that, and if all the browsers end up playing that same old game, the users will <em>always</em> lose.</p>
<p>We need more Firefoxes.</p>
<p>We need more browsers that treat their users, rather than publishers, as their customers. It's the natural cycle of concentration-disruption-renewal that has kept the Web vibrant for nearly 20 years (<em>eons</em>, in web-years).</p>
<p>We may never get another one, though.</p>
<p>The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), once the force for open standards that kept browsers from locking publishers to their proprietary capabilities, has changed its mission. Since 2013, the organization has provided a forum where today's dominant browser companies and the dominant entertainment companies can collaborate on a system to let our browsers control our behavior, rather than the other way.</p>
<p>This system, "Encrypted Media Extensions" (EME) uses standards-defined code to funnel video into a proprietary container called a "Content Decryption Module." For a new browser to support this new video streaming standard -- which major studios and cable operators are pushing for -- it would have to convince those entertainment companies or one of their partners to let them have a CDM, or this part of the "open" Web would not display in their new browser.</p>
<p>This is the opposite of every W3C standard to date: once, all you needed to do to render content sent by a server was follow the standard, not get permission. If browsers had needed permission to render a page at the launch of Mozilla, the publishers would have frozen out this new, pop-up-blocking upstart. Kiss Firefox goodbye, in other words.</p>
<p>The W3C didn't have to do this. No copyright law says that making a video gives you the right to tell people who legally watch it how they must configure their equipment. But because of the design of EME, copyright holders <em>will</em> be able to use the law to shut down any new browser that tries to render the video <em>without</em> their permission.</p>
<p>That's because EME is designed to trigger liability under section 1201 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), which says that removing a digital lock that controls access to a copyrighted work without permission is an offense, even if the person removing the lock has the right to the content it restricts. In other words, once a video is sent with EME, a new company that unlocks it for its users can be sued, even if the users do nothing illegal with that video.</p>
<p>We proposed that the W3C could protect new browsers by <a href="https://www.eff.org/pages/objection-rechartering-w3c-eme-group">making their members promise</a> not to use the DMCA to attack new entrants in the market, an idea supported by a <a href="https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2016/01/you-cant-destroy-village-save-it-w3c-vs-drm-round-two">diverse group of W3C members</a>, but the W3C executive overruled us <a href="https://www.w3.org/blog/2016/04/html-media-extensions-to-continue-work/">saying the work would go forward</a> with <em>no</em> safeguards for future competition.</p>
<p>It's even worse than at first glance. The DMCA isn't limited to the USA: the US Trade Representative has spread DMCA-like rules to virtually every country that does business with America. Worse still: the DMCA is also routinely used by companies to threaten and silence security researchers who reveal embarrassing defects in their products. The W3C also declined to require its members to protect security researchers who discover flaws in EME, leaving every Web user vulnerable to vulnerabilities whose disclosure can only safely take place if the affected company decides to permit it.</p>
<p>The W3C needs credibility with people who care about the open Web and innovation in order to be viable. They are sensitive to this kind of criticism. We empathize. There are lots of good people working there, people who genuinely, passionately want the Web to stay open to everyone, and to be safe for its users. But the organization made a terrible decision when it opted to provide a home for EME, and an even worse one when it overruled its own members and declined protection for security research and new competitors.</p>
<p>It needs to hear from you now. Please share this post, and spread the word. Help the W3C be the organization it is meant to be.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2016/04/save-comcast"><img src="https://www.eff.org/files/2016/04/11/drm-comcast-2c.png" width="600" /></a></p>
<p><a href="https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2016/04/save-netflix"><img src="https://www.eff.org/files/2016/03/31/drm-3.png" width="600" /></a></p>
<p><a href="https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2016/04/save-itunes"><img src="https://www.eff.org/files/2016/04/12/drm-itunes2b.png" width="600" /></a></p>
</div></div></div>Wed, 11 May 2016 18:08:57 +000091219 at https://www.eff.orgCall To ActionDMCADRMCory DoctorowEFF at Copyright Office Roundtable Thursday and Friday in San Franciscohttps://www.eff.org/pt-br/press/releases/eff-copyright-office-roundtable-thursday-and-friday-san-francisco
<div class="field field--name-field-pr-subhead field--type-text field--label-hidden"><div class="field__items"><div class="field__item even">User Advocates, Studios, Artists, Tech Companies Debate DMCA Protections </div></div></div><div class="field field--name-body field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden"><div class="field__items"><div class="field__item even"><p class="MsoNormal">San Francisco—On Thursday and Friday, May 12-13, Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) Legal Director Corynne McSherry will participate in public <a href="http://www.copyright.gov/policy/section512/ca-agenda.pdf">roundtable</a> discussions about the effectiveness of safe harbor provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (<a target="_blank" href="https://www.eff.org/issues/dmca">DMCA</a>) at the United States Ninth Circuit James R. Browning Courthouse in San Francisco. The discussions are hosted by the U.S. Copyright Office, which is <a target="_blank" href="https://www.eff.org/document/eff-512-study-comments">studying</a> how the provisions impact copyright owners, internet service providers (ISPs) and users—including the ongoing problem of <a target="_blank" href="https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2016/02/call-stories-user-uploads-and-takedown-abuse">takedown abuse</a>.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Congress passed the provisions—known as Section 512—two decades ago to establish safe harbors that allow service providers to avoid liability for copyright infringing material. Innovation, creativity, and free expression on the Internet are thriving as a result. Section 512 safe harbors have been essential to the modern Internet; without them we couldn’t have a YouTube, a Twitter, a Facebook or whatever comes next.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">At the roundtable discussions McSherry will speak about <a target="_blank" href="https://www.eff.org/press/releases/eff-copyright-office-improper-content-takedowns-hurt-online-free-expression">continued takedown abuses</a>, including problems with automated systems and <a target="_blank" href="https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2016/01/notice-and-stay-down-really-filter-everything">filters</a> for flagging and removing content. She will also discuss EFF’s opposition to proposals requiring ISPs to permanently remove allegedly infringing content, which would amount to the kind of Internet blacklist contemplated by the congressional bills <a target="_blank" href="https://www.eff.org/issues/coica-internet-censorship-and-copyright-bill">SOPA and PIPA</a>, both promoted by Hollywood but soundly defeated in 2012.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">What:<br />
U.S. Copyright Office Section 512 Study Roundtable</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Who:<br />
EFF Legal Director Corynne McSherry</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">When:<br />
Thursday, May 12, 9 a.m. and 1:30 p.m.<br />
Friday, May 13, 1:30 p.m.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Where:<br />
United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit<br />
James R. Browning Courthouse<br />
95 Seventh St.<br />
San Francisco, California</p>
</div></div></div><div class="field field--name-field-contact field--type-node-reference field--label-above"><div class="field__label">Contact:&nbsp;</div><div class="field__items"><div class="field__item even"><div class="ds-1col node node--profile node--promoted view-mode-node_embed node--node-embed node--profile--node-embed clearfix">
<div class="">
<div class="field field--name-field-profile-first-name field--type-text field--label-hidden"><div class="field__items"><div class="field__item even">Corynne</div></div></div><div class="field field--name-field-profile-last-name field--type-text field--label-hidden"><div class="field__items"><div class="field__item even">McSherry</div></div></div><div class="field field--name-field-profile-title field--type-text field--label-hidden"><div class="field__items"><div class="field__item even">Legal Director</div></div></div><div class="field field--name-field-profile-email field--type-email field--label-hidden"><div class="field__items"><div class="field__item even"><a href="mailto:corynne@eff.org">corynne@eff.org</a></div></div></div> </div>
</div>
</div></div></div>Tue, 10 May 2016 18:22:46 +000091599 at https://www.eff.orgKaren GulloStandardized DRM Will Make Us Less Safehttps://www.eff.org/pt-br/node/91197
<div class="field field--name-body field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden"><div class="field__items"><div class="field__item even"><p><img src="/files/2016/05/05/drm-og-1.png" alt="" width="600" /></p>
<p>Earlier this year, an independent security researcher named Rotem Kerner <a href="http://www.kerneronsec.com/2016/02/remote-code-execution-in-cctv-dvrs-of.html">came forward to disclose critical bugs</a> in a digital video recorder that was integrated into over 70 vendors' CCTV-based security systems.</p>
<p></p><center><img src="/files/2016/04/12/retailer.png" alt="" height="394" width="498" /></center>
<p>The vulnerability is a grave one. These DVRs are designed to be connected to whole networks of security cameras. By compromising them, thieves can spy on their targets using the targets' own cameras. In fact, Kerner was part of a team at RSA who published <a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B3tdhdmrVDEwS216aDNXc0JfdTA/view">a report in 2014</a> that showed that thieves were using these vulnerable system to locate and target cash-registers for robberies.</p>
<p>In the two years since the initial report, Kerner tracked down the original manufacturer, a Chinese company called TVT, and repeatedly notified them about the problems with their system. Not receiving any reply, and alarmed that the vulnerable system was showing up in the product offerings of companies all over the world--more than 70 of them!--Kerner came forward, hoping to at least warn the owners of these systems that they were relying on defective products for their security.</p>
<p>Many of the customers of those 70 companies may never know that they're relying on something so defective to safeguard themselves. That's the worst kind of security situation, a fool's paradise where you think you're secure but you're not. It's the difference between knowing your brakes are faulty and driving slower until you can get them fixed; and discovering they don't work the hard way, at 70mph on a freeway when the person ahead of you stops unexpectedly (ouch).</p>
<p>But as bad as that is, it might be getting a lot worse, thanks to regrettable decisions at the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), a venerable organization that champions open standards, transparency and competition for the Web. Since 2013, the W3C has hosted a group that includes tech giants and huge entertainment companies who are collaborating on a standard that could lead to browsers that control their users' computers in important ways, preventing users from doing things with videos that copyright holders object to, irrespective of whether those objections coincide with what the law allows users to do.</p>
<p>This standard, called "Encrypted Media Extensions" (EME) involves technologies that are guarded a global meshwork of notorious laws called "anti-circumvention laws." These laws prohibit tampering with or compromising digital locks, even for lawful purposes, if those locks are used to restrict access to copyrighted works. These laws, including the 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act in the U.S., have spread around the world. The U.S. Trade Representative has repeatedly made adopting these rules a condition of trade with America.</p>
<p>Critically, anti-circumvention laws can put security researchers in legal jeopardy. Vendors have used the rule against breaking digital locks to threaten--and even <a href="https://www.eff.org/cases/us-v-elcomsoft-sklyarov">imprison</a>!--security researchers who come forward to warn people about defects in their products. After all, no company likes to have their mistakes laid bare before their customers, and anti-circumvention has been a useful threat to silence researchers who discover embarrassing facts.</p>
<p>Anti-circumvention laws lead many researchers to keep their findings to themselves, because they or their organizations fear reprisals.</p>
<p>Which brings us back to Rotem Kerner and TVT. Digital locks, like the ones that W3C's EME proposal call for, are just the sort of thing an organization might look for in its security systems. After all, many regulators <a href="https://www.dhs.gov/xlibrary/assets/privacy/privacy_pia_mgmt_nac_cctv.pdf">impose</a> <a href="http://www.securitysa.com/article.aspx?pklarticleid=5267">strict limits</a> on how long security videos may be retained, and insurers write policies for their customers that require that they purge their surveillance data after a set period, to limit their liability in the event of a breach. A system like EME could be a godsend for head offices that want to set policy on the security systems in all their nationwide branches, causing stored video to become inaccessible after the retention period, backstopping the existing regime of <a href="https://www.policies.utexas.edu/policies/video-and-cctv-security-systems">compliance audits</a>.</p>
<p>CCTV and video recorders that include EME or other digital locks could effectively become off-limits to the sort of important disclosures that Kerner made last month. A researcher coming forward about vulnerabilities in a system that includes EME could risk criminal and civil punishments.</p>
<p>It doesn't have to be this way. EFF <a href="https://www.eff.org/pages/objection-rechartering-w3c-eme-group">asked the W3C to adopt a legally binding policy</a> that would prohibit its members from invoking anti-circumvention law against security researchers. Enough <a href="https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2016/01/you-cant-destroy-village-save-it-w3c-vs-drm-round-two">W3C members agreed with us</a> that the group working on EME wasn't able to renew its charter. But after three months of discussion, with no agreement in hand, the executive of the W3C <a href="https://www.w3.org/blog/2016/04/html-media-extensions-to-continue-work/">decided</a> to let the EME work continue without <em>any safeguards</em> for security research<em>.</em></p>
<p>The lack of consensus on this issue suggests that some technology companies want to preserve their ability to use the DMCA to shut down embarrassing disclosures. After decades of removing impediments to implementing core Web technology, the W3C is now on its way to creating a new impediment to the open Web, one that will expose users to untold security risks.</p>
<p>The W3C working group that is finalizing EME still has the option of voluntarily adopting a legally binding policy safeguarding security researchers. With your help in spreading the world, we will continue to urge them to do the right thing.</p>
</div></div></div>Thu, 05 May 2016 15:24:02 +000091197 at https://www.eff.orgCommentaryDMCADRMCory Doctorow